ARTICLE REVIEW: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in dementia
Tomlinson, E., Spector, A., Nurock, S., & Stott, J. (2015). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in dementia: A qualitative study of the views of former dementia carers. Palliative Medicine, 29(8), 720-726. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269216315582143
Introduction
The interest on the topic of mercy killing or assisted dying for people suffering from dementia from media and the scholarly world, little has been done to research the perspective of the closest people who are affected by the act. Studies estimate that three people over the age of sixty-five years of age succumb to dementia, with most of them not in their right minds when they die. Studies indicate that more of the people with the condition would like to dictate the condition in which they will die and not leave their existence in the hands of others. Voluntary euthanasia is one of the ways through which people with terminal illnesses or conditions that are not expected to improve despite medication such as dementia are likely to opt for. Another form of assisted dying the physician-assisted suicide where a patient knowingly takes fatal medicine offered to them by the doctor. The aim of this article is to examine the views that previous carers of patients suffering from dementia have on the assisted dying for dementia patients. The thesis statement of this article is, “Although assisted dying is illegal in the United Kingdom and active requests are rare, understanding the complexity of caregiver views in this country is important to contribute to debates around its legalization.” (Tomlinson, Spector, Nurock, & Stott, 2015, p. 721). This thesis set the paper in the course of achieving the set aim as previously mentioned. The paper mentions that petite literature exists on the topic of assisted dying and therefore the literature review section of the paper is mixed with the introduction.
Literature Review
This paper has no separate literature review section. However, the introduction part of the paper gives a good background on the issue in hand by outlining factual information about the topic. One of the mentioned studies indicates that more than half of the carers of people living with dementia supports assisting dying, supporting the argument that in the latter stages of life for people with dementia, they just suffer as they await “natural death” which may take months or even years to come. The section also names a few countries that practice assisted dying such as Holland and several states in the United States of America.
I feel this paper has inadequately tackled the previous literature on the field of assisted dying and the challenges associated with caring for people in the advanced stages of dementia. By examining the two topics, the author would have formed a good foundation on which to build the argument for the need to allow mercy killing or assisted dying and why in some scenarios it would be better to die than to live. By examining the suffering of people in the advanced stages of dementia, the author could have formed a link between the ethical considerations and the reasons for the patients to accept assisted dying as an option instead of waiting for the natural death.
The aims of the study are to identify; the perceptions of caretakers of patients with dementia view assisted dying for patients with the condition; the factors that influence the perceptions of caretakers on the topic and the carers view talks of assisted dying with the health specialists. This paper employed the use of the interviewing method to collect the views of sixteen participants who were selected from two United Kingdom dementia charitable organizations by the use of snowball sampling and electronic mail advertisements. The participants of the study had to fit the set criteria which was; be an adult who has had the experience of taking care of a family member with dementia, and have been bereaved of the family member they had taken care of during a period not less than one year but not less than five years. The ethical endorsement for the study was obtained from the University College London (UCL) Research Ethics Committee before the researchers proceeding with the actual study.
In the study, the researchers employed the use of semi-structured interview to allow the participant not to wonder away from the topic but also express their feelings which may be impossible to capture in a structured interview. In the analysis of the interviews, they (interviews) were perceived as transcribed verbatim before they were analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s six phases of thematic analysis, guided by a contextualist approach (Tomlinson, Spector, Nurock, & Stott, 2015, p. 721).
In presenting the results, the researchers classified the information they obtained into nineteen subthemes which were then compressed into five primary themes. The first two themes define the perceptions of the participants on the assisted dying for patients with dementia, the third and fourth describing the sways on the perceptions of the topic and the fifth primary theme depicting the perceptions on talking with health expert about assisted dying for a person the participant was caring for. As indicated in the study, the majority of the participants supported the right of the person suffering from dementia to die. However, the complexity of assisted dying in dementia was critical, and the caretakers had ranging views. Some of the factors identified through the study as possibly causing the acceptance of assisted death include; existential, physical, mental and psychosocial facets of pain.
The paper concludes that the issue of assisted dying for people suffering from dementia remains a controversial issue specifically when it comes to the ethical aspect of it. Most of the participants claimed that they would prefer to have assisted dying in the case that they developed dementia, hence the possibility of requests for assisted deaths in future as the currently productive group of people age and developed the condition. This conclusion of the study is however not final as the ratio of participants to the general population is insignificant. There is, therefore, the need for a large number of participants if the figures are to give an indication of the possible increase in the requests for assisted in dying.
In my view, assisted dying is technically suicide which is condemned in the Bible. All the people who committed suicide are all viewed as evil, and they include Judas, Abimelech, Zimri, Saul, Samson, and Ahithophel. Despite no single verse in the Bible that directly condemn suicide like there are those that say do not steal or do not profane, one of the commandments can be interpreted to condemn suicide. The sixth commandment says “You shall not kill," which can be translated that it prohibits even murdering oneself. I feel for assisted dying is suicide which is wrong despite the pain or suffering one may be going through.
References
Tomlinson, E., Spector, A., Nurock, S., & Stott, J. (2015). Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in dementia: A qualitative study of the views of former dementia carers. Palliative Medicine, 29(8), 720-726. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0269216315582143
"EXODUS 20:13 Thou Shalt Not Kill." King James Bible Online. N.p., 1769. Web. 26 Apr. 2016.
