VSED + Dementia Raise New Questions About Respect for End-of-Life Decisions
A new acronym, VSED, is emerging in discussions of end-of-life decision making. It refers to Voluntarily Stopping Eating and Drinking. However, what happens when such a plan is combined with increasing dementia?
As addressed in Paula Span’s thoughtful piece for The New York Times’ “The New Old Age,” it may not be possible to ensure such a plan will be honored, at least not under the existing law of most states. Consider the following example:
“Like many such documents, [Mr. Medalie’s Advance Directive] declares that if he is terminally ill, he declines cardiopulmonary resuscitation, a ventilator and a feeding tube. But Mr. Medalie’s directive also specifies something more unusual: If he develops Alzheimer’s disease or another form of dementia, he refuses ‘ordinary means of nutrition and hydration.’ A retired lawyer with a proclivity for precision, he has listed 10 triggering conditions, including ‘I cannot recognize my loved ones’ and ‘I cannot articulate coherent thoughts and sentences.’
If any three such disabilities persist for several weeks, he wants his health care proxy — his wife, Beth Lowd — to ensure that nobody tries to keep him alive by spoon-feeding or offering him liquids. VSED, short for ‘voluntarily stopping eating and drinking,’ is not unheard-of as an end-of-life strategy, typically used by older adults who hope to hasten their decline from terminal conditions. But now ethicists, lawyers and older adults themselves have begun a quiet debate about whether people who develop dementia can use VSED to end their lives by including such instructions in an advance directive….”
For more, continue reading “Complexities of Choosing End Game for Dementia.” Thanks to Elder Law Attorney Morris Klein for sharing this good article.