I would not wish dementia on my worst enemy.

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Dementia is a cruel disease. My dad grafted all his life and was the same weight and fitness on his 50th birthday as his 25th birthday in great shape, mom said. But he got diabetes in his 50s (again, an unlikely candidate for that illness) and hard to retire from his job in the power plant. By his early 80s dementia signs were beginning and as a family we did the best we could. Here you have to sell everything your parents have to pay the care home bills that can edge up to $2000 per month for a basic home. You get some state support but usually their pensions. My dad died three years ago at 85 and it was a relief if we are honest. But you are now on edge expecting mom to get it and go through all this all over again. You know the signs. If only dementia was just being forgetful. As most of you guys know it’s far worse than that. Towards the end the brain just rots away and dad forgot how old he was, who we were and where he lives, soon childlike as he wandered off to look for his mum, who died a long time ago. They p*ss in the bath or the hallway and take their clothes off at importune times in the kitchen. They forget everything and eventually mini strokes destroy all of their functions, finally the instructions to the organs to do their job. We kept dad at home for as long as possible to keep the house and when he finally went into hospital they helped him on his way. The law here allows for doctors not to administer water and food to a patient if they refuse it. Late stage dementia you refuse it as you think you are being held prisoner and that food is poison, you’re that befuddled. Most patients in hospital die in the early morning when the relatives are not around to feed and water their loved ones. NHS hospital wards are increasingly filling up with waling dementia patients and the doctors simply have to ‘get rid of them’ when they are too far gone just to keep the cash strapped hospital functioning. The doctors ‘get ash’ cash at $100 per body for every death certificate they sign to release it for cremation. It’s all but legal euthanasia. If dementia doesn’t get you then cancer will. Humans are simply not designed to get very old.