But after that, I do not see the point of the healthy person’s sacrifice. And with today’s medicine, people can limp along for decades.
There is a VAST difference in taking care of someone whose body is the problem vs their mind being the problem.
In addition, taking care of these kinds of people is, in fact, a modern change--like within the last 100 years change.
Before that, these people whose mind prevents them from meaningfully interacting with society ever again would have been left to die.
And, to be blunt, if I had Alzheimer's, I would want to die rather than forcing my family to care for me. There is nothing to be gained prolonging your life if you have Alzheimer's.
I admire how Terry Pratchett dealt with his and went out on his own terms.
> It's a problem around how society is structured.
Agreed.
You'd be surprised. Families have tended to members with disabilities (body and/or mind), for millenia.
The "just put them in a hospice/asylum" and forget about them, is what's quite novel.
Same thing that happens when your kid gets born heavily autistic or with any other disability, or when your wife gets heavily ill, or your husband, and so on.
You man up, and do what you can.
Sure, everybody would like to be the perfectly free human, running around without a single care.
But when everybody is like that, nobody matters.
Just like their ill parents (or ill kid) are just something to get rid off and distance themselves, the same holds true to how others see them them.
When the mindset erodes a society, nobody is there for you. They're just there while being around you appears fun. If/when the fun stops, they'll split (like friends of the rich when they lose their money).
The way people treat others in their family and close friends -- as mere objects to discard when not convenient, and as "chains around their legs" when they are in need, naturally comes back for them too.
In the end, they just amass empty experiences as isolated individuals, not able to connect to anybody, since them and others can't stand sacrificing their fun to anything.
>Elder care is a societal problem because one person cannot muster the resources for even a single, high-maintenance elder with dementia.
It's a problem around how society is structured.