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| Dying well when you have dementia | Dying well when you have dementia |
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| Henk Blanken (The difficulty of dying well, 10 August) suggests that the responsibility for authorising euthanasia should lie with a “loved one”. I doubt this would work any better than leaving it to a doctor. My elderly mother coped with my father’s progressing dementia for six years, though the task was becoming impossible, because she could not bear to place him in a dementia unit. She finally agreed to do so only after the local hospital told her she must not take him back home after a minor stroke. This took away the burden of guilt at “abandoning” him. If it was hard for my mother to put her husband in a care home, how much harder, even impossible, would it be for anyone in similar circumstances to decide their loved one should die on their say-so, however rational that decision might be? Linda FairbrotherCambridge | Henk Blanken (The difficulty of dying well, 10 August) suggests that the responsibility for authorising euthanasia should lie with a “loved one”. I doubt this would work any better than leaving it to a doctor. My elderly mother coped with my father’s progressing dementia for six years, though the task was becoming impossible, because she could not bear to place him in a dementia unit. She finally agreed to do so only after the local hospital told her she must not take him back home after a minor stroke. This took away the burden of guilt at “abandoning” him. If it was hard for my mother to put her husband in a care home, how much harder, even impossible, would it be for anyone in similar circumstances to decide their loved one should die on their say-so, however rational that decision might be? Linda FairbrotherCambridge |
| • Alzheimer’s is now the single most common cause of death in Britain. If severely affected, most Britons would not want treatment for life-threatening illnesses. A 2007 survey found that more than 60% would not wish to be resuscitated after a heart attack. Nearly three-quarters wanted to be allowed to die passively. Yet without very specific contrary instructions in a living will/advance decision, resuscitation and active treatment are medicine’s default positions. | • Alzheimer’s is now the single most common cause of death in Britain. If severely affected, most Britons would not want treatment for life-threatening illnesses. A 2007 survey found that more than 60% would not wish to be resuscitated after a heart attack. Nearly three-quarters wanted to be allowed to die passively. Yet without very specific contrary instructions in a living will/advance decision, resuscitation and active treatment are medicine’s default positions. |
| My Death, My Decision (MDMD) campaigns for the right to medical aid in dying (MAiD) not just for mentally competent people likely to die within six months anyway but also for people with chronic or progressive conditions that, despite appropriate treatment, eventually make their quality of life unacceptable to them. Our supporters include several very distinguished doctors. Dementia is unique in that any request for MAiD must be made early in the disease, before capacity is lost. Although in the Netherlands and Belgium, euthanasia can also be requested in an advance decision, even Dutch doctors, as Blanken discovered, very rarely provide euthanasia after capacity disappears, whatever the advance decision requests. In Switzerland, MAiD is also possible in early dementia, while capacity exists. MDMD urges people to consider and document their wishes about resuscitation and medical management many years before they reach the age at which dementia becomes common. If they don’t want to be kept alive when they would rather be dead, and don’t want their loved ones to watch the gradual death of personality, memory and relationships, they should say so clearly and unambiguously. Colin BrewerAssociate co-ordinator, My Death, My Decision | My Death, My Decision (MDMD) campaigns for the right to medical aid in dying (MAiD) not just for mentally competent people likely to die within six months anyway but also for people with chronic or progressive conditions that, despite appropriate treatment, eventually make their quality of life unacceptable to them. Our supporters include several very distinguished doctors. Dementia is unique in that any request for MAiD must be made early in the disease, before capacity is lost. Although in the Netherlands and Belgium, euthanasia can also be requested in an advance decision, even Dutch doctors, as Blanken discovered, very rarely provide euthanasia after capacity disappears, whatever the advance decision requests. In Switzerland, MAiD is also possible in early dementia, while capacity exists. MDMD urges people to consider and document their wishes about resuscitation and medical management many years before they reach the age at which dementia becomes common. If they don’t want to be kept alive when they would rather be dead, and don’t want their loved ones to watch the gradual death of personality, memory and relationships, they should say so clearly and unambiguously. Colin BrewerAssociate co-ordinator, My Death, My Decision |
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| Assisted dying | Assisted dying |
| Alzheimer's | Alzheimer's |
| Parkinson's disease | Parkinson's disease |
| Health | Health |
| Dementia | Dementia |
| Mental health | Mental health |
| Europe | |
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