New Study Examines Death With Dignity for People With Dementia

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Gerda Saunders, an author and former gender studies professor in Salt Lake City, Utah, was diagnosed with microvascular dementia in 2010 at age 60.

The time leading up to diagnosis and immediately after can be a whirlwind of emotions and confusion. But one thing, said Saunders, helped put her at ease: putting a plan in place for end-of-life care.

Saunders has chosen to pursue physician-assisted death when the time comes. “Preparation for the uncertain future is the most calming thing I’ve ever done,” she recently told Being Patient in an interview.

Saunders’ approach to end-of-life care is becoming more popular and accepted amongst people with a high risk of Alzheimer’s, a new study published in JAMA Neurology found. While we still can’t predict who will get dementia, there are several biomarkers that indicate a heightened risk for the disease. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania interviewed people with one of these biomarkers, beta-amyloid, about their attitudes toward physician-assisted death once they knew their brains contained higher levels of the protein, which forms into plaques that destroy neurons in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Of the 47 people interviewed, one in five said they would be interested in pursuing physician-assisted suicide if they were diagnosed with dementia and it progressed to the point of suffering or burdening others.

Physician-assisted suicide is legal in eight places in the U.S.—California, Colorado, Hawaii, Vermont, Washington, New Jersey, Montana and Washington, D.C.—but excludes dementia patients because states require the patient be of sound mind and have less than six months to live. Because the last stages of dementia can stretch out for much longer than six months, people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias do not qualify for “death with dignity” laws.

Most Americans support “death with dignity” laws, according to a 2018 Gallup poll that found 72 percent of people agreed that doctors should be able to assist a patient with a terminal illness in dying at their request. But the laws have always excluded patients with degenerative brain diseases who are deemed unable to make decisions for themselves.

Dementia patients can put advance directives into place, instructing hospital staff not to put extreme measures like feeding tubes into place. But those measures are not legally or ethically binding for medical staff.

Once she meets a set of criteria she has set for herself to determine quality of life, said Saunders, she will likely travel to Europe for physician-assisted death. She plans to carry it out herself and video it in order to avoid putting her husband, Peter, in legal jeopardy.

“We are managing it with all the intellect that we have and that is the best our family can do,” said Saunders, who has the support of her children and also promised to do the same for her husband if he meets certain criteria for quality of life before she does.

“I’ve put down a number of checkpoints: Do I appear or act happy for more hours in the day than I appear or act unhappy? Am I scared of people or my grandchildren or do I scare them? Do I consume more hours of care per day than I live on my own?”

It’s not always easy for family members to come around to the idea of a physician-assisted death—but for a patient who feels control has been snatched away, it can be a comfort. “It’s the hardest thing in his life to promise me that,” said Saunders of her husband’s commitment, “but he also asks it of me. My children and my family have given me an enormous gift in that promise.”

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