Dying well when you have dementia | Letters
(The Guardian Netherlands)

Linda Fairbrother and Colin Brewer respond to Henk Blanken´s long read on the limits of legal euthanasiaHenk 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 o 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. Continue reading...