I had a relative that FINALLY died of alzheimers... It started by taking a small sick mind and making it sicker... and then sicker still- finally she had to be institutionalized...

I went to visit the alzheimers ward _once_- It was the best analogy for hell I could ever imagine- Imagine dying people wandering around without the ability to reason, just filled with terror and anger... oblivious to what is going on around them... drooling and mumbling... Take what you imagine and multiply it by a thousand in terms of horror...

The kindest thing would be to gas them.... (My very religious grandfather said the same when visiting his wife in there). The brain wasting diseases are the cruelest.

I am not, of course, advocating killing of all those showing dementia, but I do advocate people making a living will explaining at what point that they want doctors to stop... My relative lived many years as a terrified angry and confused vegetable before she FINALLY died. Alzheimers is the worst disease a person can get.. it is slow and destroys the mind- turning a person into something less than an animal. The kindest thing you can do is let those people die- most people here would agree, but unless there is proof that these people would want that, you have to do all you can to help them live...

I hereby state that I would really hope that if I ever reached that point that someone would pull the plug (I am pretty sure that there are a few here willing to 'pull the plug' if I got a sore throat)

Sometimes death is the lesser of two evils...