# Death or dementia? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 20, 2018, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486 "2018-05-20T01:29:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/41 "2018-05-20T22:59:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Personally, I’ve never understood why someone who believes that death is followed by permanent nonexistence would be so eager to embrace it. I thought what **monstro** said was pretty succinct and understandable. Not sure how I could put it any clearer to you. I assume you realize that nothing I - or anyone else - said in this thread suggests an “eagerness to embrace” death. If I am not myself, I would rather not exist. I value my independence and self sufficiency greatly. I do not wish to be an emotional and financial burden to my family and society. I would rather be remembered as someone close to who I am, than as something far less. You - or anyone else - are certainly free to feel differently. I observe that you have not offered any explanation of why you prefer dementia, your beliefs in an afterlife or not, or your experience with people experiencing dementia. With respect to the ability of someone with dementia to consent - I agree. That is why I suggest these discussions/decisions take place at an earlier point. But if we agree that an individual lacks the competence to decide to die, then why ought we place much weight on their expressed desire to continue living? Especially if that contradicts their previous informed choice? ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/42 "2018-05-20T23:15:34Z")
My mind cannot conjure up a worse fate than being just another unpleasant task in the workday of some underpaid stranger in a nursing home. Horror stories abound. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2018, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/43 "2018-05-20T23:57:50Z")
Death before I lose any sense of what dishonor means. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/44 "2018-05-21T00:21:07Z")
Not sure many people know what “advanced dementia” entails here. We’re talking the inability to feed yourself, to swallow without choking, hallucinations, unable to walk or pick things up, and eventually total bladder and bowel incontinence. Advanced dementia isn’t confined to memory loss and confusion. I (with a history of Alzheimer’s in the family) plan on killing myself LONG before the “advanced” stage of dementia, unless we come up with a cure in the next 20 years. ---
**Author:** ![LouisB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@LouisB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LouisB)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/45 "2018-05-21T00:26:24Z")
When I was younger I would have voted for death. Now that I’m officially an elder (78) I think there is always hope for a cure but death is absolute. I don’t wanna die. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/46 "2018-05-21T02:51:58Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I observe that you have not offered any explanation of why you prefer dementia, your beliefs in an afterlife or not, or your experience with people experiencing dementia. Ny grandmother has dementia and I believe there’s a history of it in the family, so it’s certainly a fate that I could encounter at some point. I choose dementia because there is no afterlife. Death means complete and total non-existence and the complete destruction of the self. I would prefer to lose some of myself then to lose all of myself. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/47 "2018-05-21T05:43:31Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I’d rather be alive. What the hell, I’m not paying for it. I have pretty good insurance. For all we know, dementia might be a blast! I’ll hold on and hope that medical science finds a cure. I certainly don’t worry about being a burden to society. Society has been a burden to me all my life. Time for some payback! I’d like to partially retract my answer. I was being kind of flippant. I would still rather be alive than dead, that part hasn’t changed. But I do realize that relatives of dementia sufferers have it pretty rough. I do not mean to belittle their struggle, and definitely sympathize with them. I’m just not the kind of person that likes to give up, even when the odds are against me. So please don’t take offense when I say that I’d rather fight than choose death. Your preferences are of course your own, and equally valid. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/48 "2018-05-21T11:29:41Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Personally, I’ve never understood why someon who believes that death is followed by permanent nonexistence would be so eager to embrace it. Since we’re crawling around in each other’s minds here, is it really so hard to understand the allure of “permanent nonexistence”? I’m not in any great hurry to die these days because I feel like my existence can still provide a significant net ‘good’ to the world (not earth shattering, but I can improve the lives of a handful of people). Once that changes and I become a burden I can think of no more honorable thing than to gracefully bow out. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/49 "2018-05-21T11:42:33Z")
I’ve lived more years than I thought I would (my dad died when he was 6 years younger than I am now, and he was a near-perfect specimen). I would choose death without reservation if I lost the ability to care for myself. The last time someone wiped my ass for me I was a toddler, and it ain’t going to happen again. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/50 "2018-05-21T11:58:58Z")
I appreciate all of the responses, and take offense at none. Does anyone know what the general public’s response to a similar question would be? As I looked around the room at the childlike - or vacant - faces, I just felt sad, thinking about how they (I presume) used to be (at least somewhat) independent, competent people. I wondered what they would have thought if, in their younger days they had been able to see what their lives would become, what others had to do for them, what their loved ones thought of their continued existence… ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/51 "2018-05-21T12:24:04Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I’d like to partially retract my answer. I was being kind of flippant. I would still rather be alive than dead, that part hasn’t changed. But I do realize that relatives of dementia sufferers have it pretty rough. I do not mean to belittle their struggle, and definitely sympathize with them. I’m just not the kind of person that likes to give up, even when the odds are against me. So please don’t take offense when I say that I’d rather fight than choose death. Your preferences are of course your own, and equally valid. Except with advanced dementia, there is no fight left. There is misery and confusion. There is constant calling for help, which is ignored, because your physical needs have already been met, and no one can do anything for your mental or emotional needs. If you are still ambulatory, you wander the halls of the facility, confused and looking for you lost love one, or for your room, until an overworked staff member can get away from more urgent tasks and find you and get you back where you are supposed to be. You might have trouble swallowing, and choke even on spoonful of pureed food. Your body might be forgetting how to breathe, so you gasp for air. You might be frightened. You might be ashamed of your incontinence. You might be raging so much that you are in constant danger of giving yourself a stroke or heart attack from the rage, which would make your situation worse. You might not be changed often enough, and develop painful rashes and bedsores. If you are in a really poor facility, you might even get scabies or MRSA or something else. You might not have family members coming to visit you often enough to reassure you and make sure the nursing home staff doesn’t neglect you. Inre in home care: You might not have family members willing or able to care for you at home, or who have the means to hire honest, reliable, competent in-home aides to give them respite, so they don’t have to entirely give up their lives to care for you, just most of their lives. I don’t know anything about you, but if you are of large size and can no longer get to the bathroom, you will need more than one aide and a Hoyer lift to get you up in a wheelchair. Does your house have room for that? Visit a few nursing homes, and you’ll see that there are not very many happy people with advanced dementia. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/52 "2018-05-21T12:29:12Z")
> [@Ignotus](#): > > Well, for one thing there’s limited storage room. And you’d have to factor in the cost of maintaining all those bodies in a frozen state for unspecified time. Isn’t there something to be said for using that money for, like, saving millions from dying from malaria instead? > > While frozen, they’re technically dead. Why resurrect them at some point in the future, rather than replacing them with new-borns? There is no rational reason for a society to pay for indefinite cold storage of people who are of only marginal use, even if they can be successfully revived. The cost of reviving and retraining them would also be huge. Unless they are being saved to be revived for slave labor or cannon fodder, perhaps. However, I think it far more likely that power failures or employee incompetence would complete the dying process for the people who have themselves frozen. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/53 "2018-05-21T12:59:54Z")
I’m reminded of the endless debate among people who read. Some people will stick with a book, no matter how terrible or unenjoyable they find it, because they want to see it to completion. Others think that reading something you don’t want to read and don’t have to read doesn’t make sense. I’m in that second group. And I see a parallel between that and life. Closing the book when it gets too terrible makes more sense to me. I’m not living for other people, or the planet, or some theoretical ideal. I’m living, and reading, for me. Bringing some happiness or utility to others is good and that could keep me going for a while, but I need to be bringing some happiness or utility to myself, too. I don’t have a soul that will go on. I don’t have a mind outside of my brain. I just have this one, fragile existence. No need for me to act like getting to the last page is noble or says something good about my character when I’m talking to the void. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/54 "2018-05-21T13:03:08Z")
I expect to die as the price of living and accept that fully. A prolonged death process slowly losing all that is “me” with my shadow existing as a burden to my family and to the world? I do not expect nor accept that. I don’t know anyone who has cared for those with advanced dementia (either as a loved one or in a professional capacity) who would not choose death for themselves in the poll of this op. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/55 "2018-05-21T13:12:54Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > Death. I’ve already seen the ravages of dementia up close. This. > [@FairyChatMom](#): > > I’d rather my family deal with my death than with mental deterioration. For myself, it really wouldn’t matter, would it? At some point, I’d cease to be me. And this. None of us can truly know what it’s like to be far into dementia, but it’s a dreadful thing for the family to have to deal with. > [@Quartz](#): > > Have you been to an old people’s home? Have you heard all the demented crying out for help? It’s dreadful. I don’t want that for myself. I have. And it is. Totally with you here. > [@adaher](#): > > On one hand it’s easy to say you don’t want to live if you can’t function mentally very well. But your perspective might change once you’re actually there. There’s still plenty of enjoyment to be gotten out of life with poor mental function, especially if your body is aging normally and you’re still physically healthy. It’s especially difficult for those around you if you’re body’s still in good shape. When you’re taking a crap out in the yard because your mind’s gone, and your wife or daughter is helpless to stop you because you’re still big and strong, _you_ may be deriving enjoyment from the experience, but I can promise you that _they_ won’t. I’m not making up this example either. This happened. These were people I knew. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/56 "2018-05-21T13:49:25Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I expect to die as the price of living and accept that fully. Well put. The only way to avoid non-existence is to not exist in the first place. Everlasting life sounds great but it would necessarily preclude the possibility of reproduction. Not an existence that appeals. Nor does an afterlife appeal. There is no evidence for it and because I don’t believe it and that this is the only life I’ll ever know, damn right I’ll make the best of the time I’ve got and get out of the way for my kids to do the same. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/57 "2018-05-21T14:34:55Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > I’d like to partially retract my answer. I was being kind of flippant. I would still rather be alive than dead, that part hasn’t changed. But I do realize that relatives of dementia sufferers have it pretty rough. I do not mean to belittle their struggle, and definitely sympathize with them. I’m just not the kind of person that likes to give up, even when the odds are against me. So please don’t take offense when I say that I’d rather fight than choose death. Your preferences are of course your own, and equally valid. But dementia isn’t really something you could fight. It’s especially a problem because you wouldn’t even know that you had it. People with Dementia or Alzheimer’s really don’t know that something is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/58 "2018-05-21T15:11:52Z")
> [@vivalostwages](#): > > But dementia isn’t really something you could fight. It’s especially a problem because you wouldn’t even know that you had it. People with Dementia or Alzheimer’s really don’t know that something is wrong. With the caveat that they are aware as it starts that there is something wrong, that they are forgetting things they used to remember, having difficulty concentrating, have more difficulty controlling emotions, etc. But so much of it is slow and insidious. It’s the reactions and attention of their loved ones that often make it clear there’s a significant problem. One of the issues in the US is that people will handwave certain things as a natural part of aging when they aren’t. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/59 "2018-05-21T15:46:30Z")
After being on the periphery of watching my grandmother slip into very severe dementia before her death, I decided that early Alzheimer’s would be a great time to take up a life of skydiving and dangerous narcotics. Go out with a splat, not a whimper. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2018, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486/60 "2018-05-21T15:53:16Z")
Perhaps it’s not \*exactly \*answering the OP, but it’s in the spirit of it. I volunteer on an ambulance. Last night, we were called to a nursing home where a woman had fallen out of bed and hurt her face. The woman had dementia, though probably not what would be considered “advanced” dementia. She could answer yes or no when we asked her if she wanted to go to the hospital, but was otherwise uncommunicative with us and her husband did the talking. Her husband was just the sweetest guy, advocating on her behalf, insisting that the hospital should phone any updates not to the nursing home staff but directly to him, and making us promise that we would return his wife to him just as beautiful as she is now. When we loaded his wife onto the cot and brought her to the door, her husband grabbed his walker and followed us to the door, and asked us all to close our eyes while he gave her a kiss goodbye. He said “Later alligator,” and when his wife didn’t respond, he said in a gently teasing voice, “You’re supposed to say ‘in a while crocodile,’ remember? That’s your line.” It very nearly brought tears to my eyes how much he still loved this woman even as she was not visibly returning his affection. If I were suffering from dementia and all alone, it would be horrible. But if I were slipping into dementia and had a man like that by my side, I would absolutely want to go on living. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/death-or-dementia/814486.md?page=4)