My mom got diagnosed with early onset alzheimer’s back in 2009 when she was in her early 40s and she lost her mind a couple months after, but she still lives to this day only it’s not her anymore if that makes sense. I hear lots of people say they lost their loved ones to alzheimer’s and it kills me that my mom can’t get the same fate because (I’m gonna get alot of hate for this) death is far more humane than what she’s going through at the moment.
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[Eventually, if they don’t lose the desire to eat, aspiration pneumonia becomes a serious risk](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11490146/) Basically, the reflexes necessary to swallow properly, food is inhaled, and it feeds bacteria in the lungs.
You should talk with her care team, and other family members, and try to plan ahead for what happens if a serious health problem like pneumonia happens. Aspiration pneumonia can be treated with antibiotics and temporary tube feeding, but it happens again and again. Eventually, if the patient is constantly fed through a tube, they can inhale their own saliva to a degree that it damages the lungs.
You, and your advisors, should consider whether it is best *not* to treat illnesses like pneumonia.
Like you, I have an inherited risk of dementia, and I have made it clear to my family that I want no life extending care at all. You should do the same.
> I hear lots of people say they lost their loved ones to alzheimer’s and it kills me that my mom can’t get the same fate because (I’m gonna get alot of hate for this) death is far more humane than what she’s going through at the moment.
I do not have Alzheimer’s, but if I do get diagnosed, I want death vs lingering on. Death is far more humane than 13 years of nothingness.
I think you are a strong daughter/son for saying that. It is no malicious, it is the truth.
Alzheimers is one of my biggest fears in which I would not wish upon my enemy as it’s truly a brutal way to go in life.
No one should send you hate for this.
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