Why one prominent doctor (Dr. Ezekial Emmanuel) says, "I hope to die at 75"

[MADem]

189. From the Altzheimer's Association. I provided the link within the post. And it's not "30 or 40."

It's TWENTY percent "risk" for eighty five year old women, and TWELVE percent "risk" for eighty five year old men.

Your link is even more sanguine than the one I provided. Your link says "one in nine," mine said "one in eight." And your thirty percent figure referred to people OLDER than eighty five.

And I think you've got those numbers messed up with that 44 percent. I can't find that number anywhere in the AO literature. Why would fewer people above eighty five have the condition than people seventy five to eighty four?

And while "1 in 3" seniors may die from a dementia related illness, the truth of the matter is that many of those people were just fine until shortly before they died. For example, I had a cousin who died recently. She lived alone, was independent, did her own driving, shopping, and hauling herself to social events up until she was ninety one, when she had a serious and profoundly debilitating stroke. She contracted MRSA in the hospital, got a raging and intractable infection, and died within three months of her stroke of the infection with "dementia" as part of her diagnosis. That said, she didn't spend years wasting away in a demented state. Her life, save her last three months, was pretty full, useful, and enjoyable. She volunteered up to the day before she had the stroke, and she paid taxes all her life.

I just think this article is an opening salvo for giving older people marginal care, because, oh well, they're gonna die anyway. It's a path smoother to a future attitude of "fuck all those old people."

I don't care for it at all.