# Can senile dementia be a blessing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2004, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585 "2004-12-19T01:44:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/21 "2004-12-20T17:17:50Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > To lose one’s mind to senile dementia is a horrifying prospect. But might it not be merciful in cases such as my mother’s? No, I don’t want to lose what I have left of her into that blank oblivion, but sometimes I wonder whether it’s crueller for her to know so completely just how dreaful her existence is. Picture this: Instead of mental agility, you are often confused and frightened. When you tell people about your hallucinations they attempt to sooth you by pointing out that nothing is there, but you become furious because they’re lying to you - you see these things clearly, why do they lie and say they don’t? You still feel all the pain, but now you have no idea _why_, and no one can offer you an explanation you can understand. The “good” aspects of your personality erode, so you do spiteful things all the time that you wouldn’t have when you had all your marbles. And every once in a while, the fog lifts and you are completely lucid for a moment or two - just long enough to be crushed by the guilt of alienating the people caring for you, and to realize that the frustrating maze your life now is, is never going to get any better, and you’ll be this way until you **die** - and that at this point people will be more relieved when you die than sorrowful. Then the fog descends again, and your bewilderment returns. Does that sound like a better prospect to you? I doubt my great-grandmother would have picked it had she the choice… ---
**Author:** ![gobear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8dc957/32.png) [@gobear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gobear)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2004, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/22 "2004-12-20T17:24:45Z")
My grandmother wnet into a horrific decline before she died, going form sa bright, albeit vicious, woman who traveled, had friends, and enjoyed a lively social life to being confused, withdrawn, and bedridden from chronic hip fractures caused by osteoporosis. Fuck getting older. You’re sharing those pills, I trust, **Eve**? ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/23 "2004-12-21T01:15:59Z")
Well, there is the kind where you know you are having episodes of confusion and 'being lost", and there is the kind where you don’t know that you are demented, if you follow me. If I had to choose, I would choose option 2. If I am to have Alzeimer’s or SD–please take ANY and ALL lucidity from me. I am a nurse and I deal with old folks all the time–in varying degrees of alertness. Some are lucky, like the 97y/o mentioned earlier. Many, many are pissed off, bitter sad, alone people who suffer both physical indignities as well as faltering mental capabilities. I too would hoard pills, if I had any. No way will I deteriorate slowly. Death is not the worst thing that can happen to a person… ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/24 "2004-12-21T02:27:24Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Wouldn’t it be crueller to have her oblivious to everything except the pain? My grandmother is in the middle — though we hope it’s the end of the middle — of a long, agonizing fade, and she doesn’t really know anything except the fact that she is regularly attacked by stabbing pain and she hates being alive. The fact that she doesn’t remember she’s been in failing health for several years is no comfort at all. In some ways, it’s even more heartbreaking that this is what her world has been reduced to, than if she actually had some awareness of the family around taking care of her. Save some of those pills for me. I love being alive, but I could not tolerate being alive in such a state. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/25 "2004-12-21T02:51:02Z")
After seeing what my grandmother went through, I can say I’m an all or nothing life type of guy, too. We should form a society. **Dopers For Dying While We Still Have Our Wits** ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/26 "2004-12-21T04:40:01Z")
Yeh, well, there’s the rub – how do you know it’s time to jump off the merry-go-round? Does the Angel of Bad Thing Alerts drop by with a note saying “Better quit while you’re ahead”? My mom’s physical decline has been creeping along for many years now. There was never one definitive moment where she could say, “This is it, I can’t take it any more” – not until it’s too late for her to do anything about it other than wish for release. I’d like to think that when the day comes for me to dip into a stash of exit pills, I’ll know it, and be able to do it. But for how many people is that a realistic prospect? How many of us now declaring we’d rather kill ourselves than crumble away, either physically or mentally, will actually make that choice when the time comes – or even know that the time has come, until it’s already passed us by? ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/27 "2004-12-21T14:06:13Z")
My strategy used to be to compose myself a mental test when I was young and then take it every year. First year that I failed my test would be the sign of the start of the downhill run and it would be time to take my life. Of course, I never did that but that was my great idea. Like was said earlier, how do you know when it’s time to get off? By the time it definitely has arrived, it’s too late for you to take action. I don’t think dementia is ever a good thing. Even if you have another illness that causes severe pain, pain can be managed but senility can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2004, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585/28 "2004-12-21T16:01:13Z")
I have a friend who belongs to the Hemlock Society, and I’m going to ask her how to join. My mother is one of those “any kind of life is better than dying” people, which I just don’t understand—but it’s her choice, so I will not unplug her when the time comes, even though that’s what I’d want for myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-senile-dementia-be-a-blessing/280585.md?page=1)