{"id":4554,"date":"2019-11-01T16:22:29","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T16:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/?p=4554"},"modified":"2019-11-01T16:22:29","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T16:22:29","slug":"webcast-archive-euthanasia-for-alzheimers-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2019\/11\/webcast-archive-euthanasia-for-alzheimers-disease\/","title":{"rendered":"Webcast archive: Euthanasia for Alzheimer&#8217;s disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1180\" height=\"664\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nRe_vN0QpEo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In this episode of\u00a0<em>Euthanasia &amp; Disability<\/em>, Amy Hasbrouck, Taylor Hyatt, &amp; Christian Debray discuss:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Euthanasia for Alzheimer\u2019s disease<\/li>\n<li>World Medical Association reaffirms opposition to AS\/E<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Please note that this text is only a script and that our webcast contains additional commentary.<\/p>\n<p><strong>EUTHANASIA FOR ALZHEIMER\u2019S DISEASE<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>We recently learned of two incidents of euthanasia where the medical condition was Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/li>\n<li>The first occurred in British Columbia in 2017 and was described in an article in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theglobeandmail.com\/canada\/article-from-dementia-to-medically-assisted-death-a-canadian-womans-journey\/\">Globe and Mail<\/a>\u00a0last month.\u00a0 Like most coverage of AS\/E, the article was all in favour of the euthanasia, and evoked fear of disability, with phrases such as \u201cthe descent into dementia is harrowing under any circumstance.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The article laid out the conditions under which Mary Wilson, a woman in her 70s, said she didn\u2019t want to live. \u201cI do not want to be placed in a home and I do not want to live past the day when I can\u2019t recognize [my husband] or the kids or my sister and brother.\u201d\u00a0 Though these conditions had nothing to do with pain or physical symptoms, she nonetheless had the \u201cfull-throated support\u201d of her husband and children to die, once her \u201cbeautifully-tuned mind\u201d could no longer perform up to its usual standard.<\/li>\n<li>The author builds dramatic tension by highlighting the difficulty in planning the euthanasia around the requirements that Ms. Wilson\u2019s condition was in an advanced state of irreversible decline, that her death had become \u201creasonably foreseeable\u201d and that she was still competent to consent when euthanasia was performed.<\/li>\n<li>Events came to a head in the summer of 2017 when Ms. Wilson\u2019s husband was hospitalized, and could no longer help her with daily activities like dressing. This, along with forgetting \u201cfor a fleeting moment\u201d that she had three children (and not just the one in the room with her), is offered as fulfilling the conditions she set out for her death.<\/li>\n<li>In a piece for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/radio\/thesundayedition\/the-sunday-edition-for-october-27-2019-1.5335017\/b-c-man-is-one-of-the-first-canadians-with-dementia-to-die-with-medical-assistance-1.5335025?fbclid=IwAR1Z-6lAStRaElcBJtsz88_1Xr6RFVDNHe8Lxlnz8fgYUcEEVPCNjbgcQpQ\">Sunday Edition<\/a>\u00a0on October 27, the CBC takes up the story of the euthanasia of people with dementia with an account of the death of another BC resident, Gayle Garlock in August of this year. Like the Globe and Mail journalist, the CBC reporter assumed that loss of intellectual capacity amounted to \u201cintolerable suffering;\u201d in Mr. Garlock\u2019s case, being unable to read.\u00a0 Also like the other article, the CBC piece portrays the doctors as heroic defenders of the person\u2019s right to choose to die, but didn\u2019t question whether the person had a full range of options for living. The journalists said nothing about providing the supports necessary to grieve the loss of memory and intellectual ability, adapt to the new reality and live comfortably at home until their natural death.<\/li>\n<li>Here are some ideas to think about.<\/li>\n<li>Both articles refer to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/camapcanada.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/CPG-dementia.pdf\">guidelines<\/a>\u00a0created by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) for evaluating MAiD requests from people with Alzheimer\u2019s disease or other dementia.\u00a0 Those guidelines state that \u201cit is not the responsibility of the clinician who assesses eligibility for MAiD to formally diagnose dementia, but it may be necessary for that clinician to form an opinion as to the presence, duration, impact, and type of cognitive impairment or dementia.\u201d CAMAP gives the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) criteria for dementia (now called \u201cmajor neurocognitive disorder\u201d), the first of which is \u201cevidence of significant cognitive decline.\u201d\u00a0 The guidelines list many causes of cognitive decline that can be remedied, including thyroid problems, depression, sleep apnea, vitamin B-12 deficiency, medication side effects, and environmental toxins. The recommendations then say \u201cThe clinician assessing for MAiD eligibility is not responsible for testing and excluding these possible contributing factors but should be assured that reasonable efforts have been made to exclude and\/or mitigate them.\u201d If the person who makes the life-or-death decision isn\u2019t responsible, who is?<\/li>\n<li>Some people might point to the timing and style of these two articles as evidence of a campaign by pro euthanasia groups like Dying with Dignity to build public tolerance for euthanasia of people with dementia.\u00a0 Those same people might also consider the selection of Lise Pigeon\u2019s question about MAiD during the second French-language debate to be part of a similar effort to ensure public support for the Attorney General\u2019s decision not to appeal the\u00a0<em>Truchon<\/em>\u00a0decision. Would those people be paranoid, cynical and jaded, or merely perceptive and realistic?<\/li>\n<li>Finally, the idea that being unable to read or \u201crattle off the names and ascension dates of every British monarch back to 1066\u201d equals intolerable suffering seems elitist.\u00a0 For Amy, who depends on memory, logic and deduction to make sense of very limited visual input she gets, losing mental capacity would basically mean losing some of her vision, but it\u2019s certainly not worth dying over.\u00a0 Being around disabled people and having a disability means learning to accept people as they are, to take one day at a time, that there\u2019s more than one way to get things done, and to appreciate the important things in life.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>WORLD MEDICAL ASSOCIATION REAFFIRMS OPPOSITION TO AS\/E<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\n<li>In a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wma.net\/news-post\/world-medical-association-reaffirms-opposition-to-euthanasia-and-physician-assisted-suicide\/\">statement<\/a>\u00a0released October 26, 2019, the World Medical Association has reaffirmed its long-standing policy of opposition to euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.<\/li>\n<li>At its annual Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, the WMA adopted a revised Declaration on Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide. While opposing AS\/E, the declaration says a doctor who \u201crespects the basic right of the patient to decline medical treatment does not act unethically in forgoing or withholding unwanted care.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>The WMA defines euthanasia as \u201ca physician deliberately administering a lethal substance or carrying out an intervention to cause the death of a patient with decision-making capacity at the patient\u2019s own voluntary request,\u201d while assisted suicide involves \u201ca physician deliberately enabl[ing] a patient to end his or her own life by prescribing or providing medical substances with the intent to bring about death.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n   ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\n<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nThis week, we discuss news stories about providing euthanasia for people with dementia.\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2019\/11\/webcast-archive-euthanasia-for-alzheimers-disease\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast archive: Euthanasia for Alzheimer&#8217;s disease&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/2019\/11\/webcast-archive-euthanasia-for-alzheimers-disease\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Webcast archive: Euthanasia for Alzheimer&#8217;s disease&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[634,635,208,460,121,633,632,636,118],"class_list":["post-4554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-webcast-archive","tag-alzheimers","tag-camap","tag-cbc","tag-dementia","tag-euthanasia-disability","tag-gayle-garlock","tag-mary-wilson","tag-medical-association-en","tag-webcast","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4557,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions\/4557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tvndy.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}