Should family memebers be allowed to terminate medical care for Alzheimers disease?
Answer Hi Brian, You don’t give the back story for your wondering about this issue so I’ll tell you my experience, and in doing so, will answer your excellent question from my own perspective. As you probably know, Alzheimers is a terminal illness all by itself – on average, it takes between 3 and 7 years to cause a person’s death, although there are people for whom it goes much faster and many for whom it goes much slower. Fast or slow to progress, even a person in perfect health otherwise will eventually be killed by it – and having advancing AD also makes diagnosing and treating any other illness extremely complicated. As the disease progresses, the brain damage that has happened means eventually the person can no longer walk, talk, smile, swallow, know who anyone is, or do anything for themselves. They become incontinent, they develop problems eating. They lose muscle, they lose weight no matter how carefully cared for they are. Essentially, they become bedridden since they lose mu
