Dying well when you have dementia | Letters

Henk Blanken (The difficulty of dying well, 10 August) suggests that the responsibility for authorising euthanasia should lie with a “loved one”.
My elderly mother coped with my father’s progressing dementia for six years, though the task was becoming impossible, because she could not bear to place him in a dementia unit.
Yet without very specific contrary instructions in a living will/advance decision, resuscitation and active treatment are medicine’s default positions.
Dementia is unique in that any request for Medical Aid in Dying must be made early in the disease, before capacity is lost.
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