From the New York Times:

Patronizing and negative language directed toward elderly people can lead to negative health consequences, researchers are finding.

In studies by Yale researchers, older people exposed to negative images of aging, including words like “forgetful” and “feeble,” performed worse on memory tasks and showed higher levels of stress. In another study by researchers from the University of Kansas, patients with dementia were more aggressive and less cooperative when health care workers addressed them with language like “good girl,” “dear” and “sweetie.”

The Kansas researchers concluded that “elderspeak” sends a message to older people that they are incompetent, which begins a cascade of negative effects including decreased self-esteem, depression, withdrawal and dependent behaviors.

Minette Marrin, writing in the [UK] Sunday Times, draws a connection between Baroness Warnock, who said people with dementia have a “duty to die”, and Joanne Hill, who drowned her daughter because she was apparently ashamed of the girl’s cerebral palsy.

It ought to be obvious that what Warnock said and what Hill did was wrong and that one leads directly to the other. The thought is father, or rather mother, to the deed. What’s alarming is that Warnock has had official influence on public policy in such matters. All the same, I think there is room for more compassion and careful consideration in both cases.

… Having grown up close to such questions, I’ve come to realize that shame is not only natural but understandable. One feels at a deep level like a failure as a mother or father. Men often feel this much more strongly than mothers and don’t want to be associated with a damaged child. Well-adjusted people are able to put this shame behind them and I think it’s a mark of a good person in a civilized society that she or he can do so. But it may be difficult. A poorly adjusted person may find it impossible.

… None of this makes [Hill] innocent of murder, but it is ground for some compassion and understanding rather than righteous indignation. I suspect the indignation comes from an unwillingness –- an inability -– to confront the inescapable harshness of disability and the painful truth that it is indeed a burden.

See also:

Now our intellectuals think the old and frail have a ‘duty to die’, we are on the path to barbarism, op-ed by Melanie Phillips in the [UK] Sunday Mail

Do the demented have a duty to die? op-ed by Ken Connor on townhall.com. Connor is chairman of the Center for a Just Society

Sarah Wootton (left), writing in the [UK] Guardian, says British philosopher Mary Helen Warnock is wrong to say that people with dementia are a burden to society and have a “duty to die.” She says Baroness Warnock’s position provides a much-needed opportunity for society to debate this taboo subject. An excerpt:

We are all living longer and impressive medical advances mean more of us will be diagnosed with terminal illnesses as well as complex medical conditions. As a consequence, we will need to radically address the way we care for and treat people nearing the end of their lives. Essentially we’re going to have to rethink the end of life.

Sarah Wootton is chief executive for Death in Dying, which advocates for greater personal choice at the end of life.

From ABC News:

Ethicists and Alzheimer’s advocacy groups are expressing outrage over a comment made by a British philosopher this week that people with dementia have a “duty to die” to minimize the burden they place on their families and society.

Baroness Mary Helen Warnock made the remarks in an interview with the Church of Scotland’s Life and Work magazine. “If you’re demented, you’re wasting people’s lives — your family’s lives — and you’re wasting the resources of the National Health Service,” she said. The comment echoed an article titled “A Duty to Die?” that she had written for a Norwegian periodical.

“We dispute the fact that if you have dementia or some part of Alzheimer’s that you cannot have a quality lifestyle,” noted Paul Williams, director of public policy for the Assisted Living Federation of America. “We’ve seen in the last 10 years that these residents have been able to have the most independence and the quality of life that can be expected of them. … Just because you have a memory disease [doesn't mean] that we let you die and we can kill you.”

Cure me of deafness? No thanks — [UK] Telegraph

Well done to those scientists who have found they can trigger the growth of new hair cells in the inner ears of mice — a discovery that could eventually restore hearing in human beings. But I’m fine, thanks, and if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to switch you all off now.

Maryland prepares sports program for kids with disabilities — Baltimore Sun

91 percent of people with disabilities believe they don’t have a political voice — Marketwatch.com

Girl with Asperger’s builds confidence in beauty pageants — New Orleans Times-Picayune

Boy with autism a success story in regular classes — Modesto [CA] Bee

Two worlds collide: Wider knowledge of sign language needed — Irish Independent

Sports program helps kids with autism build skills — Newsday

Buffett’s sister supports respite home for people with intellectual disabilities — Boston Globe

Woman’s choice: Hearing or life – ABC Good Morning America

Britain’s Thatcher has dementia — New York Times (free registration required)

Aspen faces special ed crunch — Aspen Times

From the Rochester [NY] Democrat and Chronicle:

People with developmental disabilities are living longer and are more likely to outlive their parents, but services to help them just aren’t available.

Lifespans have been extended by medical advances and de-institutionalization. That trend means huge adjustments for families and for the professionals who provide day programs, housing and other services paid for with state and federal Medicaid dollars.

For agencies and taxpayers, the change means extra expenses to hire more staff and provide additional training about aging to manage increasingly complex needs. For families, it can mean elderly parents find themselves no longer able to care for their disabled, aging son or daughter — but there’s a shortage of solutions. More than 750 people with developmental disabilities are on waiting lists in the Rochester area for residential care.

See also related op-ed by Mike Ervin in the Houston Chronicle:
Shortsighted about long-term care; Neither presidential candidate is facing up to this important issue

From the New York Times, [UK] Times:

A maverick German politician has helped a healthy 79-year-old woman to kill herself, prompting a criminal investigation and sparking a new national debate over assisted suicide.

Bettina Schardt was neither sick nor dying, but had difficulty getting around, no family and few friends. She feared that she might need to move into a nursing home.

Ms. Schardt’s suicide — and Mr. Kusch’s energetic publicizing of it — have set off a national furor over the limits on the right to die, in a country that has struggled with this issue more than most because of the Nazi’s euthanizing of at least 100,000 mentally disabled and incurably ill people.

… The larger lesson of Ms. Schardt’s solitary death may have to do with the way Germany treats its old.

“The fear of nursing homes among elderly Germans is far greater than the fear of terrorism or the fear of losing your job,” said Eugen Brysch, the director of the German Hospice Foundation. “Germany must confront this fear, because fear, as we have seen, is a terrible adviser.”