Citation

Largent EA, Lowers J, Pope TM, Quill TE, Wynia MK. Hastings Cent. Rep. 2024; 54 Suppl 1: S11-S21.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life Sciences)

DOI

10.1002/hast.1550

PMID

38382034

Abstract

Some individuals facing dementia contemplate hastening their own death: weighing the possibility of living longer with dementia against the alternative of dying sooner but avoiding the later stages of cognitive and functional impairment. This weighing resonates with an ethical and legal consensus in the United States that individuals can voluntarily choose to forgo life-sustaining interventions and also that medical professionals can support these choices even when they will result in an earlier death. For these reasons, whether and how a terminally ill individual can choose to control the timing of their death is a topic that cannot be avoided when considering the dementia trajectory. With a focus on the U.S. context, this landscape review considers the status of provisions that would legally permit people facing dementia to hasten death with appropriate support from medical professionals. This review can be used to plan and guide clinical and legal practitioner discussion and policy development concerning evolving questions not fully covered by existing medical decision-making provisions.

Language: en

Keywords

Alzheimer's disease; clinical ethics; dementia; hospice; medical aid in dying; palliative care; voluntary stopping of eating and drinking; VSED