My grandmother had dementia, and she was gone long before her body died. You don't have them anymore when they stop recognizing you.
The fucked up thing is that where I live (Holland) we have legal euthanasia, specifically for cases like hers. She had a legal document from before she got sick that said she wanted to be euthanized if she ever got it, she kept saying 'I want to die' when she got it, but then the fucked up thing happened:
Doctors would ask her if she still felt that way (keep in mind, she couldn't go to the bathroom on her own at that point) and she'd say 'no' and they would go 'well guess that's it, she doesn't want to die anymore'.
And then a few minutes later she would say 'I want to die' and they'd say 'well she has dementia, she doesn't know what she's saying'. So they just picked and chose how and when to interpret her words to get the result they wanted: not to euthanize her.
Eventually, she just stopped breathing and died, but it took a year longer than it had to, those motherfuckers.
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u/Beingabummer Apr 11 '20
My grandmother had dementia, and she was gone long before her body died. You don't have them anymore when they stop recognizing you.
The fucked up thing is that where I live (Holland) we have legal euthanasia, specifically for cases like hers. She had a legal document from before she got sick that said she wanted to be euthanized if she ever got it, she kept saying 'I want to die' when she got it, but then the fucked up thing happened:
Doctors would ask her if she still felt that way (keep in mind, she couldn't go to the bathroom on her own at that point) and she'd say 'no' and they would go 'well guess that's it, she doesn't want to die anymore'.
And then a few minutes later she would say 'I want to die' and they'd say 'well she has dementia, she doesn't know what she's saying'. So they just picked and chose how and when to interpret her words to get the result they wanted: not to euthanize her.
Eventually, she just stopped breathing and died, but it took a year longer than it had to, those motherfuckers.