If you have a family member that thinks when someone has dementia and stops eating and drinking on their own and have to be fed that it is time to "let them go ahead and pass on" to stop feeding them, how do you explain that this person is physically well (which is true) but because the brain neurons have stopped firing is why they can no longer function. It doesn't mean they need to die. I need something kind, simple and all encompassing to say in response. I think this comes from not understanding the disease and not being with the patient.
I have no answers; I would struggle with that question myself, but I'm anxious to read what others write.
Is life worth living if you are deaf? Blind? A paraplegic? A quadriplegic?
What about all those soldiers that have come home without limbs, should we have left them to die?
How about the mentally ill and cognitively challenged?
Why is it only the old whose life is not seen to have value?
I have thought more then once that I could simply stop feeding her. She wouldn't ask for food. She wouldn't complain. She would just gradually weaken and die, and no one would ever suspect it was anything but the natural progression of the disease.
We caregivers hold an awesome power and responsibility in our hands.