Suppose that you had Alzheimer's...

[David P]

...How many years of that condition would you like to endure? As many as you could get?

[Brian Gaff]

That would very much depend on how much it impaired your life and how fast it progressed. That is a daft question.

Brian

[tim...]

I'd be booking my flight to Switzerland ASAP

tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

My mother had severe dementia which came on towards the end of a long life, and progressed very quickly. Went from being near enough OK to not being able to speak or really do anything in about 6 months.

Specialist said all we could hope for is she was actually pretty happy in her own little world. Impossible to say otherwise.

[The Natural Philosopher]

how would you know? time stops with alzheimers.

However 5 years after ceasing to be able to look after yuourself is normal.

The last 2 are awful. For onlookers

[dennis]

The early signs include believing the lies your favourite politicians tell you however stupid they are and calling anyone that calls them lies cnuts. After that the fanatical behaviour just gets worse.

[Andrew]

More seriously, believing that you have won a lottery that you never entered and ending up on a suckers list is a problem.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

And talking to the politicians on TV rather than shouting at them. ;-)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Wot e said cant be true, because nearly 16million people must be suffering from it.

[David P]

The number of Americans living with Alzheimer's is growing ? & growing fast.

An estimated 5.8 million Americans of all ages are living with Alzheimer's dementia in 2019. This number includes an estimated

5.6 million people age 65 & older & approximately 200,000 individuals under age 65 who have younger-onset Alzheimer's.

One in 10 people age 65 & older (10%) has Alzheimer's dementia.

Almost 2/3 of Americans with Alzheimer's are women.

Older African-Americans are about twice as likely to have Alzheimer's or other dementias as older whites.

Hispanics are about 1.5 times as likely to have Alzheimer's or other dementias as older whites.

As the number of older Americans grows rapidly, so too will the number of new & existing cases of Alzheimer's. By 2050, the number of people age 65 & older with Alzheimer?s dementia may grow to a projected 13.8 million, barring the development of medical break- throughs to prevent, slow or cure Alzheimer?s disease.

[Steve Walker]

The trouble is that you don't want to be booking it too early, while you can still get something out of life, but neither do you want to leave it too late and need help organising it and thus leaving someone else open to prosecution.

SteveW

[tabbypurr]

Suppose you spent your life posting pointless off-topic posts to newsgroups. How many years would you want to endure?

[tim...]

yup

I get that

tim

[Dave Plowman (News)]

With dementia, I doubt you'd feel ill enough to want to end it all in the early days. And after it progresses, not fit to make such a decision.

[tim...]

That's the problem

you have to catch it at the point where you know that you are not going to recover.

but where you can still understand

very difficult point to find

tim

[harry]

My mother went on for ten years. It's not good, believe me. Especially the latter part.

[Levi Jones]

Its not that black and white, plenty with dementia have times when they are quite compis and rational and can top themselves then if they have prepared for that before the dementia is too bad.

[The Natural Philosopher]

My mother ended up falling down smashing her hip and thats when they found out that she wasnt really able to take care of herself and had a serious lung infection, mal nourishment, dehydration and a thyroid problem...and a fridge full of chicken breasts and nothing else.:-)

Anyway she ended up in IC on oxygen.

Vascular dementia is failure of all the brain blood vessels progressively, but pure oxygen boosted them back up and she was lucid, could remember stuff, realised what was happening and - thank heaven - gave us kids power of attorney.

Two weeks later infection gone and thyroid pills working, they took her off oxygen. She never knew where she was after that. From that point to death was around 6 years I think, in progressively more EMU type institutions.

The last two years she broke her elbow. The doctor said 'I am not going to operate, her quality of life isn't high enough' I said' Doctor, if that was my beloved pet dog, I'd put it down'. She sat in the hospital outpatients screaming while they took the plaster off. Terrified. She didnt recognise me at all. I didn't bother visiting much after that - what was the point? They put her on morphine patches. Never clear why. She just said 'it hurts! it hurts!' all the time., I asked the care matron 'what will happen' 'she will forget to eat, and then she will die: we wont force feed her'

The last visit she mumbled 'I have just been out walking in the fields with mummy' thought she was 4 years old. 10 days later she died,.

Look they did what they could. Wrong? I dont know. she was certainly often very frightened, totally alone in what passed for her mind. I am suspsicious that her end was hastened by morphine, but hey, why not?, Ive had morphine and ODing on it is no bad way to go.

My point is that we have no way to judge someone elses subjective state. When they can't tell us themselves.

I've seen rabbits with myxmatosis look like they were trying to die. They expose themselves or sit in the road. My cat wanted to die when his kidneys failed.

But they could act. Dementia is awful because the person doesn't even know they want to die so to speak. Its very very hard on people who care for them.

Bowel cancer though,. Not bad. Two friends died of that. Pain all over, morphine, more morphine, dead in 6 weeks. Probably from morphine

Its a legal minefield

In my mothers case everything she loved she really lost when she became institutionalised. There were some good days in the first two years - she didn?t really know where she was but she recognised me and we had days out.

After that it was harder and harder

Doctors often make judgements and administer lethal or near lethal doses of medication to manage the death process. Are they angels or murderers?

As one doctor said when accused of 'playing God'

"Someone has to"

[harry]

There's evidence indicating that it's linked with air pollution.

Anther reason to get rid of fossil fuels.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If I'd had kids who didn't realise she had all that going wrong for her, I'd find someone more reliable to give power of attorney to.