Dutch probe ‘appalling’ euthanasia of dementia patient

In a rare series of moves, Dutch authorities are investigating whether doctors may have committed crimes in five euthanasia cases, including the deaths of two women with advanced Alzheimer’s disease.The investigations highlight the difficulties doctors face in handling euthanasia requests for those who later develop dementia.Whether Dutch authorities prosecute the doctors in the two Alzheimer’s cases being investigated will likely set a course for how the increasing numbers of people with dementia who seek euthanasia will be handled. The doctor said she was fulfilling a written request the patient made for euthanasia years earlier and that since the patient was not competent, nothing the woman said during her euthanasia procedure was relevant. Dr. Amanda Thompsell, chair of old-age psychiatry at Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists, said it can be risky to assume how much a dementia patient is suffering mainly by observing them.
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