I lost my Grandmother in November and though she was never diagnosed with Alzheimer's, she did experience a long, sad cognitive decline. Seeing someone who was once so feisty not quite remember to change her Brita water filter was very difficult on my entire family.

Needless to say, I understand what you mean by your grandfather's passing being a relief to many. Good on you for having the courage to write that - it is a very common thing that far too many people are afraid to express.

I am sorry for your loss.

As someone about to go through this with a close relative, and with a chronic illness myself (type 1 diabetes), I often think of euthanasia. I haven't come to any conclusions yet.

Active euthanasia (stuff beyond DNR) for mental conditions is a non-starter because it is impossible to get a valid statement of the patient's preferences.

You can't write a valid living will that says "kill me if I forget who my wife is twice a day for a week".

It's a difficult problem, to be sure. I feel like what sokoloff went through is maybe not the optimal solution. I don't know.

What I went through was vanishingly small compared to my grandmother and father. It cemented in my dad a resolve to self-euthanize at the first sign of a progressive mental degradation. Of course, the first sign is "too early" to be optimal as well, but no one wants to wait until it's too late. In a strange twist of fate, he experienced this fall a temporary but rapid decline in function due to a treatable (and subsequently treated) physical condition that manifested itself over a 10 day period. Now recovered, I'm sure he's glad he didn't off himself.

I don't have any easy answer, even having had these experiences. There's little question my grandfather would not have wanted to live as he did the last 18 months of his life, but still epsilon chance he prefered whatever his life was to nothingness and even if not, was 17 or 19 a "more right" answer? How do you distinguish "routine" "what did I come downstairs for again?!" from more serious progressive degenerative diseases? Who knows...