Seniors’ Perspectives on Dementia and Decision-Making
The study, which involved an online survey of and interviews with older adults, revealed a heterogeneity of ways of thinking about capacity.
Alzheimer’s disease
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Read more: Hastening Death to Avoid Prolonged Dementia Hastening Death to Avoid Prolonged Dementia
By Norman L. Cantor The scourge of Alzheimer’s is daunting. For me, the specter of being mired in progressively degenerative dementia is an intolerably degrading prospect. One avoidance tactic — suicide while still competent — risks a premature demise while still enjoying a tolerable lifestyle. The question arises whether an alternative tactic — an advance…
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Read more: Changing the Paradigm of Advance Directives to Avoid Prolonged Dementia Changing the Paradigm of Advance Directives to Avoid Prolonged Dementia
by Norman L. Cantor In the early days of living wills — the 1970’s and 1980’s – a major objective was to avoid being maintained on burdensome medical machinery in a highly debilitated status at the end stage of a fatal affliction. The contemporaneous legislation endorsing advance directives was typically geared to “terminal illness” (meaning…
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Read more: Is It Immoral for Me to Dictate an Accelerated Death for My Future Demented Self? Is It Immoral for Me to Dictate an Accelerated Death for My Future Demented Self?
by Norman L. Cantor I am obsessed with avoiding severe dementia. As a person who has always valued intellectual function, the prospect of lingering in a dysfunctional cognitive state is distasteful — an intolerable indignity. For me, such mental debilitation soils the remembrances to be left with my survivors and undermines the life narrative as…
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Read more: Biomarker Epistemology, Cognitive Decline, and Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker Epistemology, Cognitive Decline, and Alzheimer’s Disease
By Matthew L Baum This past Sunday, a group of researchers reported in the journal, Nature Medicine, a preliminary technique that uses variation in blood levels of 10 fats to predict the likelihood that elderly individuals would develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s Disease in the following 2-3 years. The sample size was small…