Doctors back euthanasia in severe dementia case

for those against ask yourselves if you would want to live in the following conditions :

1. Severe stroke leaving you completely paralysed, unable to take care of even your most basic needs, unable to communicate.

2. Severe alzheimers or adult dementia leaving you unaware of where you are, who you are, who people around you are, unable to take care of yourself.

3. Brain Dead and relying on machines to keep your heart pumping and lungs working. Totally unaware of everything and everyone around you unable to take care of yourself and no chance of recovery.

4. In the final stages of a terminal disease, pain ridden, unable to take care of yourself or do anything hoping that the morphine will lessen the pain even a little bit.

Would you want live like that ? Would you want your family to sit by helplessly watching your condition deteriorate and the doctors can do nothing more for you because nothing more can be done for you.

Those are the conditions in which assisting someone to die is considered.

Personally I prefer a quick death over a slow often painful one as is often the case with the conditions that are listed. Better to die with dignity.

Lastly as a physician I agree with the call the doctors made in her case. Cold as it sounds it was the humane thing to do and the hardest decision for any doctor to make.

My sincere condolences to her friends and family.

reply to post by Expat888

Personally I prefer a quick death over a slow often painful one as is often the case with the conditions that are listed. Better to die with dignity.

Sensible on the surface, compassionate even. But if it starts here, where does it end?

This IS the edge of the wedge. The world is in the middle of the NCD Pandemic - and it's costing a fortune.

Our corporate leaders in the World Economic Forum (WEF) say the NCD Pandemic is an "economic issue, not a health issue" - the NCD Pandemic is predicted to cost $47 Trillion by 2030 - $16 Trillion is tagged as losses due to "mental health" and includes Alzheimer's Disease and other dementias.

Despite mounting evidence linking industry to the creation and spreading of infectious misfolded proteins around the world in our food, medicine, water and air - and linking environmental contamination with prion diseases and prion-creating conditions - the WEF says people make themselves sick. They say sick people are responsible for the financial crisis, not corporate greed.

So our corporate leaders want us to do a bit of culling - and preferably, to pull the plugs and put people down as soon as they're unable to work in the corporate system, without waiting until the victims are completely incapacitated.

Not where I want to go. Or to see friends and family go. The issues are way more complicated than economics and "quality of life" - especially when its the money needed to preserve quality of life that's being withheld.

You have to ask yourselves in reference to doctor's hypocratic oaths. At what point is "doing no harm" actually doing harm? At what point is sitting back and doing nothing but watching them suffer doing more harm by prolonging their agony, than giving them the peace of release from this life and their shattered and destroyed bodies?

When the first physicians hit the scene, if these doctor's patients were dying and suffering they would end their patient's pain by a knife to the heart. There is no reason to let people who are dying and in so much pain they are insane with the pain, continue suffer abd prolong their agony? Have we as a so called "advanced" civilization fallen so far as to delight in the sadism of watching people dying and squirming in agony as they scream and beg for death (if they can even comminicate)? Are people nowadays so cold hearted as to deny these people release from their agony?

When do you cross the line? At what point will we love these people enough to allow them to pass on in peace? Everyone demonized Dr. Kevorkian years ago but he was right! There comes a time when doing nothing (doing "no harm") is doing harm.

People with serious psychological disorders often live in ongoing, unbearable pain. In an extreme case, I can imagine that this might be the right thing to do.

Definitely a controversial topic. Seems impossible to imagine how anyone might feel in that situation, if they were even capable of coherent thought.

Without a memory and sensory perception, the world is a very scary place.

I have no doubt that people in earth-based cultures knew how to die, and when to die. If they were too injured to recover or kill themselves - friends or predators would put them out of their misery. But things have changed.

A huge change involves the notion of "value" in this world - and the now-dominant idea is that people who cannot work or function in the corporate system have no value. The push is on to euthanize all the "useless eaters" - not just the fully incapacitated.

In other cultures, everyone was valued, and understood to have a reason for being and a role in the culture. Our corporate culture respects nothing but profit, and the ability to generate profit. Think about where that leads. Please.

Originally posted by silent thunder


And Sixty-four really isn't that old in the grand scheme of things.

The age is really irrelevant in these circumstances. Have you any idea what dementia does to you? It's a protracted mental and physical death. Nor is it always a gentle slide into a peaceful la la land. It can involve moments of terror, confusion, anger... Personalities can change. As a former dementia support worker, I was in the strange position of having to dissuade a newly diagnosed client from suicidal thoughts while knowing I would want it for myself.
I would hope to be one of those who is aware if and when it starts and that I would have the guts to end it while still capable..

I just read yesterday that studies are finding brain activity indicating awareness in people in coma - a coma can last for years. Aware and trapped in isolation for years -- I would so rather be dead.

Don't give me "Edge of the wedge" crap - any life is precious bull. It is my life, my judgement of quality of my life, my call -- you have ABSOLUTELY no say, no input, nothing to do with it.

Ok so I understand the informed consent argument that some of you are pointing out but what if I expressed the wish all my life that should I not be able to live normally and cannot give my consent I still want to die, shouldn't I have the right to be euthanized?

I may not be able to give my consent at the time, but because I made it clear in the past that this would be my wish in this case, wouldn't that be enough?

It's sort of like a catch 22... You're well enough to give consent, but too well to die... You're unhealthy enough to die, but not healthy enough to give consent on the spot...

I believe that if the person made it clear that in certain situations, it's time to euthanize, then so be it even if they can't give consent on the spot... Whether you pull the plug or administer meds, what's the difference?

I fully support the right to euthanasia in certain conditions:

1) Upon diagnosis of a terminal illness (ie: certain forms of cancer, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrings/ALS, Huntington's, etc).
2) When a disease has passed the point where it cannot be treated with intent to cure (ie: stage IV lung cancer or end stage AIDS).

After watching 3 of my 4 grandparents die from cancer and other chronic illnesses I no longer see the point to letting nature take it's time. Too much suffering, both on the part of the patient and also on their family. Alot of people don't realize that cancer is often harder on the patient's family then it is on the patient themselves.

reply to post by ChrisF231

I fully support the right to euthanasia in certain conditions:

1) Upon diagnosis of a terminal illness (ie: certain forms of cancer, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrings/ALS, Huntington's, etc).

What about Stephen Hawking? Would you put him down?

Almost as soon as he arrived at Cambridge, he started developing symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, known colloquially in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease), a type of motor neurone disease which would cost him almost all neuromuscular control. .....By 1974, he was unable to feed himself or get out of bed. His speech became slurred so that he could be understood only by people who knew him well. In 1985, he caught pneumonia and had to have a tracheotomy, which made him unable to speak at all.

Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA (born 8 January 1942)[1] is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts,[2] a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences,[3] and in 2009 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.[4]
Hawking was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge for 30 years, taking up the post in 1979 and retiring on 1 October 2009.[5][6] He is now Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge. He is also a Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and a Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario.[7] He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes. He has also achieved success with works of popular science in which he discusses his own theories and cosmology in general; these include the runaway best seller A Brief History of Time, which stayed on the British Sunday Times best-sellers list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.[8][9]
Hawking's key scientific works to date have included providing, with Roger Penrose, theorems regarding gravitational singularities in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes should emit radiation, which is today known as Hawking radiation (or sometimes as Bekenstein–Hawking radiation).[10]

If you acknowledge the importance of Hawking's contributions, but have reservations about other sick peoples' abilities, how would you decide who's worth keeping alive and who's just a "useless eater"? ...What are your criteria?

2) When a disease has passed the point where it cannot be treated with intent to cure (ie: stage IV lung cancer or end stage AIDS).

After watching 3 of my 4 grandparents die from cancer and other chronic illnesses I no longer see the point to letting nature take it's time. Too much suffering, both on the part of the patient and also on their family. Alot of people don't realize that cancer is often harder on the patient's family then it is on the patient themselves.

I'm sorry about your experiences. My own mother died of cancer, so I know what you mean. In my mother's case, she held on for about 7 years past her predicted "death date" - by sheer will power, cussedness, joy of life and absolute unwillingness to give up. Yes, it was a strain on the family - but would you take that choice away from her?

My grandfather decayed for 2 years from Parkinsons. He volunteered 2 tours for WWII and was an International Purchasing Manager for a large company. He dacayed to nothing. When he could still speak and nothing else, he said that he wanted to die.

Instead, your not allowed to in the US. And my grandmother took care of him all day everyday for 2 years, even in a nursing home. Which sapped their savings and left her with little when he died.

Absolutely if somene wishes to go, let them go.

reply to post by nixie_nox


What about people like my mom, who did NOT want to "go"? She fought because she wanted to live.

One poster above thinks we should just put people down as soon as they're diagnosed with incurable disease -

1) Upon diagnosis of a terminal illness (ie: certain forms of cancer, Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrings/ALS, Huntington's, etc).
2) When a disease has passed the point where it cannot be treated with intent to cure (ie: stage IV lung cancer or end stage AIDS).

NONE of these diseases are "curable"!!!!!

So looks like the idea is to put anyone down as soon as they're diagnosed - to spare everyone the suffering and "pain" of life. Cuz that's what it is: Life - which includes death.

As others have also experienced dementia, I have too with my grandmother. Me and my mother took care of her for 2 years as the disease rapidly and aggressively took her. It started with forgetfulness then quickly turned her almost leaving the house at 2 am in the middle of January because she "just had to go to the bank" and didn't know why.

It followed with hallucinations which were the scary part for all of us. Things she would dream would be alive in reality, such as a man crouched on her dresser watching me grinning as I laid on my makeshift bed beside my grandmas bed so I would wake up if she did. Once there was a little girl in the corner whom I "interacted with" and when she said what she looked like I realized it was the girl on Maury Povich that day......can you imagine things in your TV becoming reality? Thank goodness it was a little girl and not some horror movie.

It finally turned into a zombie like state where all she could do was maybe say yes but not understand or care, just stare blankly. On her death bed she was blind, she would wake up, gasp for air and scream out for her dead sister Rose, this went on for 5 days....I don't even think she could hear us when we said goodbye and to let go.

I watched my grandmother go from a woman I absolutely adored to a walking shell, and it terrified me for whats a possibility for my mothers future as well as mine.

If the woman's wish to die while she could still function then I don't see the issue. I don't believe she would of made the request then chose to die when she was still sane, that would be pointless. She made a written statement apparently and the family supported her.

reply to post by soficrow


If the person at one point says they no longer want to go on, of course. My grandfather said he wanted to die and then had to live as a vegetable for another 6 months. Nothing but cruelty.

It seems that people who have watched relatives deal with dementia have a better understanding of what is really happening.

We've had to go through this with one older relative. It's sad to see them losing bits and pieces of their mind. She was still mentally somewhat functional when she passed away from another illness. She never seemed to understand that she was sick.

Now, I'm going through this with my dad. He is in the early stages of senile dementia. He still has a good quality of life. It's hard to watch a loved one decline in mental ability. So far no one has figured out how to reverse these declines.

I would never want to put my family through this. Most likely, I'll elect to do myself if I ever live long enough to start declining in my mental health.

You all of course can choose for yourselves.