To think this is the most awful thing to say to a parent

[Kate8889]

My mom has a husband she's been with for about 12 years, they're in their 60s.

He has a sister and their father recently died after a very difficult few years of Alzheimer's disease (he was physically combative on the daily).

This sister (in front of everyone) told her mom that if a person gets a diagnosis such as Alzheimer's it is the person's responsibility that they don't become a burden on their loved ones and they should end their life. I cannot imagine saying that to anyone but especially my parents.

My aunt tried to end her life when she was 89. She was desperate to go. Took loads of pills and woke up the next day feeling groggy but still here. Apparently it’s not so easy to exit voluntarily, even with cognitive abilities intact.

Bet you wont. Dementia is awful and insidious. It creeps up slowly and destroys the person. By the time its too far its too late. So many people say this so flippantly as if its rhe easiest thing ever but they never do.
I have been a GP in the same practice for 23 years and have seen so many people and families go through this. Despite many of them saying things like this I have never had a single person "go off to switzerland" or kill themselves
Truly terrible disease scourge of this century.

I think you are being unreasonable, sorry. While the way she said it was wrong, a lot of people with experiences of dementia/Alzheimer's in their family feel like this, we all do in ours -not the burden point but that yes it is better to go on your own terms and not finish up like that.

Also, she's just lost her dad after watching him go through something unimaginable, and she will have been suffering through it with him as will the rest of her family, so it's them that she's thinking of. Her mum may well feel similarly, even if she doesn't voice it. I don't think you should be judging her in her time of grief tbh.

I am trying to make sure I have the relations correct.

This was your 'step-fathers' sister who said it to their own mother?

I don't think I would have said it quite like that but I would openly talk about this sort of stuff with family even friends.

Where would the tramadol and insulin come from and wouldn't either of you get in trouble for not calling an ambulance straight away?

Although I guess you could lie and say you just walked in and found them dead.

Dementia is death by a thousand cuts - you lose the person you knew and instead someone else starts to emerge.

That person often bears no resemblance to the person you knew and at worst is really unpleasant to deal with.

It can totally taint your memories of the actual person to the point where yes, you really do want them to die and for it all to stop.

So, I agree with her.

It's a difficult one. I 100% agree that people should be able to choose to doie and that it is inhumane to keep people with little to no quality of life alive. My grandma didn't recognise her children and vocally wanted to die for the last years of her life. If she were a cat it would have been cruel not to put her down. On the other hand I think the practicalities of implenting a dementia eithpolicy would be unbelievably complex. I do wonder if a middle ground would be that once people are deemed to have lost capacity they move to pain management only medicine. My gran was on a cocktail of medication every day, slowly added on from when she was in her 60s and had a great life until her 90s when they were keeping a major stroke or heart attack at bay when that would actually have been the most natural and compassionate thing that could have happened.

Kindly OP your post smacks of someone who has never directly been through the horrific nature of this disease.

There are some things in life that we can be empathetic about but until they happen to us we won't ever really understand and this is one of them.

As the sister has been directly through this and experienced their parent deteriorate into a shell of a poor version of themselves while potentially being violent, aggressive, incontinent, mute, refusing to eat etc your post sounds at best ignorant and best entitled.

While the delivery may not have been great, they are also grieving and people all say things in moments. I think you need to take a step back and reflect on how she must have been feeling to want to say that to people.

Assume you have tramadol and insulin to hand? You do know that what you are talking about is currently illegal in the UK and you could and would be prosecuted

Just this century?

Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

All of the people on here saying they're going to get themselves to Switzerland or jump off a bridge are talking crap.

Firstly however well anyone thinks they know themself, NO-ONE knows how they'd react to anything until it happens to them and secondly, how do they think they'd manage it with dementia? - and no, your children WON'T help you to kill yourself.

Edited to change theirself to themself :-)

No experience of dementia but I'm in agreement too, some long term issues are hideous. The difficulty is knowing when.

I have started working on my Advanced Directive (legally binding if witnessed). If I am diagnosed as having lost capacity I want any and all treatment to stop. Nature to take its course.

Currently living through DM's final days with advanced vascular dementia.

There are too many people in DM's nursing home eking out a miserable existence because no one was able to say 'enough now'. ABs still being prescribed etc.

I dont want this for myself.

You could only have help to kill yourself under the assisted dying bill if you were 6 months from your probable death, dementia can go for years, I know, I looked after my DM for six years. Telling someone they should take their own life, right to their face, is cruel and hurtful. I wished my DM would pass away quietly several times but I never, never have said it outloud

Probably better for her to keep her own council then.

Which is my point
It is currently almost impossible for people to make plans in advance to end their life in the eventuality of a dementia diagnosis
It is virtually impossible for a demented person to end their life

I find It completely unreasonable for the woman to expect someone with dementia to take charge and solve the problem

My father passed from Alzheimer's years ago
He asked ne to kill him, while he was in the early stage.
Of course he was already impaired ag that point - if he was lucid, he 100% would have done It himself.
I dis not want to blow up my own life by murdering him.
But It would have been much kinder to do it.

Unfortunately a beloved amazing relative has early onset dementia so age isn’t a barrier. It’s an awful disease and just so cruel. We have a lot of it in my family so I’ve made my peace that I’ll end my own life if I’m diagnosed. My dad has it right now and it’s beyond awful.
OP I’m going to echo what most people here are saying and while the person could have been more tactful she is actually right in what she said.

Until you have walked in her shoes you shouldn’t judge. It is a bloody awful disease.

My DM dies with it 2 years ago this month. She went from a smart, witty, intelligent person to a scared, frightened husk of the person she was. After two years we DBs and I) are still putting ourselves back together. She went from being a bit “funny” in the afternoon (sundowning) to having the occasional flash of herself, to having no recognition and being in constant fear.

if the sister visited, even if your DM did most of the caring, she would likely have been giving your DM a break. I remember the many times I left from “visiting” my DM and just sat in the car and cried before I could drive home.

If my DM had known what was to happen, she would have committed suicide. If I had known what would happen, while DM was still her to make this choice, I might have helped.

if this had not happened to my family, I may have had a similar view to you. Unfortunately, I’m not so naive about dementia any more.

This resonates. FWIW, my MIL (with dementia) was adamant that she didn’t have it - or that she’d caught it at the care home.

I would, however, like to see everybody with a dementia diagnosis checked for infection. I have three people in my family who appeared to have dementia, only to ‘come back’ after antibiotics. One, the doctors said all along it was an infection (she was so bad, we couldn’t believe anybody could come back from it). One who had ‘dementia’ for a couple of years, then had IV antibiotics for a chest infection, and ‘came back’ - travelling about, and showing no sign of mental impairment. And one who is improving slowly after antibiotics. I wouldn’t be surprised if the last one has some early cognitive decline - but if she improves a little more she still has the potential for some quality of life.

I have the gene for altzeimers and watched my grandfather die of this awful disease

i will 💯 off myself as a curtesy to my children

id not want to hear my children suggest this tho

Presumably that's part of why she said at the very end (of the cruise)

I agree that she shouldn’t have said it in the way she did, nor do I agree with the point of view that it’s a moral obligation. That said, if I was diagnosed with dementia, and assuming I still had the capacity to do so, I would look into taking my own life in as peaceful a way as possible. That’s a personal choice though and others must make their own.

I wish there was a system where we could quite clearly willingly sign up to say if we got such diagnoses we could be put out of our misery as it’s no life.

We keep people alive in worse conditions than dogs forced to live a life where they cannot take care of themselves or remember their own loved ones and the ones they do remember are from a long time ago often a dead relative crying out for them. Found wondering the streets in a daze looking for their beloved passed away husband/wife.

No thank you.

I have had three relatives with dementia (who have all now died). I would not want to go through dementia, or have my loved ones having to deal me.

But saying the person needs to end it misunderstands the nature of the illness. By the time you are diagnosed it is usually a fair way down the line, and your thinking is too disordered to put any plans you have made into action. And it is also quite common for people with dementia to refuse to acknowledge that they have it anyway.

My lovely neighbour said if she got dementia she would walk into the sea and end it all (feasible, as we live by the sea). Of course when it came to it, she was not able to do so. She moved to a care home and died there.

So I'd like to say I'd walk into the sea if the need arose, but I doubt I'd be able to execute that plan. Or even remember I'd had the plan in the first place.