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.”

Yvonne Abraham, writing in the Boston Globe, calls for sweeping changes in the way the healthcare system treats aging people and the caregivers who support them. She tells the story of Virginia O’Connor, a woman whose mother with Alzheimer’s didn’t qualify for the services she needed because she didn’t want to living in a nursing home, assisted living center or hospital.

Ultimately, O’Connor found help for her mother — for fees of up to $650 per month that she had to pay out of her own pocket.

Many others can’t afford these services. Amazingly, they are not covered by insurance.

Which is ludicrous when you consider how much more expensive it is to provide an elderly person with a hospital bed — on average about $20,000 per stay — than it is to provide this kind of support, which can help avoid the hospital.

But the whole crazy system is weighted toward the expensive business of managing crises, and not prevention - even though the latter ultimately costs less.

From the [Oklahoma City] Oklahoman:

As baby boomers age, homebuyers are increasingly looking for universal design elements that will help people with disabilities live independently. Features such as wheelchair accessibility, open floor plans, walk-in showers and ground floor bedrooms are gaining in popularity.

“As people age, they get scared about giving up their independence. We are trying to provide independence, but in a much safer environment, security wise and medical wise,” said builder Jim McWhirter, president of the Central Oklahoma Home Builders Association.

From Joseph Shapiro on NPR, a feature on a program in Cleveland in which older people with age-related cognitive challenges work with students in an inner-city charter school.

Studies of older people who did regular volunteer work in schools have suggested that volunteers increased physical strength, increased social activity and boosted cognitive activity. Dr. Peter Whitehouse, a co-founder of Cleveland’s Intergenerational School, is trying to prove that volunteering has health benefits for people with Alzheimer’s and dementia as well. He also hopes to stir more interest in the value of volunteer work.

Others wonder whether it is practical to allow people with dementia — who need help themselves — to volunteer in schools.

From The [Lower Hudson Valley, NY] Journal News: An elderly father in Westchester County, New York, and his son with a mild intellectual disability face an uncertain future.

Ninety-year-old Anthony Russo (left, with son Ray) recently moved to a nursing home. Ray, 49, is still living in the family home, where a home health worker provides him with part-time assistance. Anthony worries about how his son will get along without him.

Hard choices and sorrowful separations are a fact of life for most families, but aging parents who provide for mentally disabled children face a whole new level of apprehension. The category, which has layers of complicated housing and social-service needs, is growing as the population of baby boomers with disabilities lives longer.

… “I’m definitely worried about him,” Anthony Russo said. “He’s been with me for 49 years. Being away from each other, it’s hard. We’ve always done things as a team.”

(more…)

From the BBC:

The United Nations is celebrating the coming into force of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) — a landmark agreement that aims to give the world’s 650 million disabled people full equality. The measure took effect earlier this month after the 20th nation ratified it, in this case Ecuador.

So far some 25 countries have ratified the convention — starting with Jamaica in March last year. The largest nations that have already ratified it include India, Mexico, the Philippines and South Africa. Spain, Hungary and Slovenia are the only EU nations on the list so far.

… disability campaigners in the UK are critical of their government’s “reservations” on residential care, segregating education, employment in the armed forces and freedom of movement for disabled people with regard to nationality and immigration

… It is estimated that about 10 percent of the world’s population lives with some sort of disability, making disabled people the world’s largest minority. This figure is likely to increase as a result of medical advances and the world’s aging population, according to the World Health Organization.

… In some countries, disabled child mortality is as high as 80 percent even when the general level of mortality for the under fives has dropped below 20 percent.

See earlier posts:

• Op-ed: Washington’s phobia of global treaties
• World leaders urged to act on disability rights

Elderly, people with disabilities would be denied care

From the Associated Press:

Doctors know some patients needing lifesaving care won’t get it in a flu pandemic or other disaster. The gut-wrenching dilemma will be deciding who to let die.

Now, an influential group of physicians has drafted a grimly specific list of recommendations for which patients wouldn’t be treated.

The suggested list was compiled by a task force whose members come from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies. They include the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services.

On the list of those not to be treated are:

• People older than 85
• Those with “severe mental impairment”;
• Those with a severe chronic disease, including advanced heart failure, lung disease of poorly controlled diabetes;
• People with severe trauma.

Public health law expert Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the report an important initiative but also ”a political minefield and a legal minefield.” The recommendations would probably violate federal laws against age discrimination and disability discrimination, said Gostin, who was not on the task force.

… The recommendations appear in a report in the May edition of Chest, the medical journal of the American College of Chest Physicians.

• Related story: Pandemic flu threat remains substantial, experts say