Does My Advance Health Care Directive Cover Dementia?

Today, AirTalk on KPCC hosted a segment entitled “Should Patients Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or Dementia Be Able to Choose Assisted Suicide?”

With adults living longer, cognitive issues associated with Alzheimer’s and Dementia are drawing more attention and causing us all to think about how we would want to be cared for if we were to be diagnosed with such a condition. Should we have the ability to end our own lives?

California’s “right to die” law passed in 2015. The law allows mentally competent adults who are within 6 months of passing due to a terminal illness to obtain lethal drugs to end their life. The agent you select on your advance healthcare directive is not able to make a decision to end your life with lethal drugs.

As currently written, those with Alzheimer’s or dementia are left out of the right to die law because of their declined cognitive abilities and ability to live beyond six months after diagnosis.

While the right to die laws do not cover Alzheimer’s and dementia there are steps that can be taken under current laws to ensure your advance health care directive is clear in your intent to avoid prolonged suffering. As mentioned in the AirTalk segment, a directive can cover instructions to withhold hand feeding if an individual’s desire is to avoid a prolonged dying process.

If dementia and Alzheimer’s are conditions you are interested in planning for you should seek an estate planning attorney to draft a proper Advance Healthcare Directive.

The Law Office of Stephanie Macuiba can be reached at 949-697-5958.