Senility, Alzheimers, and Nursing Homes

After working in a Nursing home for a few weeks before quitting, I have always wondered what my fate would be when my brain succumbed to depreciation or I came to the point where I could not take care of myself.

What do you think your generation would do when the time came, and you were too old and crotchety, to the point where you fell and was unable to get up?

Do you think in 60+ years, you will see nursing homes as the same as they are now, or would their be computers and T Vs everywhere, old people playing classic Video Games on their old outdated TV Systems back in the good ole days of '2k10 and discussing anime that have long been over?

If my will is followed, I will be—let's say put to sleep—if I am ever beset with an incurable mental illness.

I fully expect to commit suicide if it ever gets to that point.

My mind starts going real fast? Suspended animation is what I hope for.

I doubt I will live that long.

As long as I have my husband in my old age, I will be fine.

I too worked in a nursing home for a couple of weeks, I quit once I realised the nurses were neglecting the patients. Ever since that day I have promised at least a dozen people that I will take them into my home if anyone even dares suggest a nursing home to them.

edited 15th Mar '11 6:53:44 PM by KingFriday

^ Not all nursing homes are that way, you know.

Anyway, I honestly don't know what I would wish done. Ask me in twenty years, maybe.

I'm with my dad on this one:

"The day I can't put my clothes on or go to the toilet by myself, you're to take me out into a field and blow my head off."

No sweat, pops.

edited 18th Mar '11 11:03:05 AM by InverurieJones

Alzheimer's and senility I fear. Greatly. Not sure what I would want done to me.

edited 18th Mar '11 12:22:05 PM by Aondeug

^^Well, maybe not so spectacular a fashion, but I think euthanization would be my actual prefered option.

I'd try to hang on as long as I could. I think we're approaching the point where damage to the brain may be partially repairable, or perhaps worked around—imagine a computer chip in your head that you can save memories to when your own memory starts to go.

That'd be nice, but let's just hope the Singularity happens on schedule.

Euch.

Meat body for me or none at all.

@Kris Mahai I would certainly hope not! I'm sure they're not, it's the thought that someone I love could end up being in a place like the one I worked in that frightens me.

I also could never bring myself to put someone I care about in a home unless I was absolutely sure I couldn't provide them with the support they needed.

I'm an only child, so caring for my aging parents is a constant worry of mine. My mother just passed seventy, and if her mother is any guide she'll be with us for another twenty or so years. As will my father. Both families have age related problems. Dad = dementia. Mom = brittle bones. I have no clue how I'm going to juggle their medical problems, my medical problems, a job, and any family I might be blessed with.

Nursing homes seem to be the only way I can come close to caring for them, but I've spent a lot of time visiting relatives in the best nursing homes in my state, and I'd feel bad asking my parents to move into one.

Should my mind start to go I will become Granny Stormchaser and my last moments will be GLORIOUS. Better to die screaming into a tornado/hurricane/what-have-you than to die not knowing who I am, masturbating in front of the nurses, and shitting myself.

I'm not an only child, but my parents are also in their 70s with many more years ahead of them (I hope). My sister and I have been threatened with disownment if we so much as breath the word "nursing home". My Dad's memory's a bit off, and he has heart problems out the wazoo, but his brothers and sisters haven't been dropping off 'til their early 80s and he's got a better attitude than most of them. Mom will either die of a massive stroke in a few years or last til 100 and die in better shape than me.

I'd rather kill myself if that ever happened to me.

edited 13th Jun '11 3:26:18 PM by rockmanx

If I get Alzheimers, I'd do that assisted suicide thing.

Hell, yeah. I'm under orders to shoot my dad if he gets to the 'dribbling and crapping myself' stage.

There are less messy ways to do it that also involve fewer legal fees. Just have the doctor proscribe too much pain meds per dosage. Don't press charges, Badda bing badda boom.

I think I'd try to hang on, if only for my families sake. Put me in a nursing home or something if I become a burden on the people around me.

If... it got to the point of being a drawn out execution for everyone involved... then yeah, a one-way ticket to Switzerland please. (Or more likely just a drop off a tall bridge.)

Well, for me, this scenario got a lot more real when my grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimers this summer. If I were to get Alzheimers, I definitely wouldn't want to subject my loved ones to the pain that they would feel. I'd try to go for the assisted suicide before it got too bad.

For me? Wakizashi through the liver.

Eh, if I stop being functional, I'll check out on my own terms. Life is a choice, and I'll choose how and when I go if I've got any chance. It's one thing to fight for life when "life" means something, quite another to fight just for the sake of fighting.

I've seen Death. I don't fear it.

I respect its power, strive to avoid the touch of it...but no one gets out alive, on a long enough timeline survival rates blah blah lip service you get the point. It's a poor thing to fear the inevitable, and (to my mind) a good thing to deal with it.

I'm gonna die. Before that happens, I'm gonna live, and that nasty in-between place a good many humans condemn themselves to is no place I want to go.

One word. Cryogenics.

If I can't freeze-dry myself until the world stops sucking, then the best thing to do with senility is to imitate Grandma Death. Just stand in the road, saying ominous things. Damn, but how will I remember the movie if I'm senile?