The Quality of Life

When Janet Lembke's mother was a sprightly seventy-eight years old, she made her daughter promise to help her die when the time came. Pills with a stiff Bloody Mary and a hug. But when that time came many years later, it was not so simple. Her mother had had a series of strokes that had rendered her incapable of rational thought, and Lembke couldn't, in fact, help her mother die. Watching her mother suspended in a life that wasn't really living prompted Lembke to wonder what could be done. How do we deal with life's end? How might we best approach it? Does human life hold an intrinsic sacredness? How best may those of us who have our wits about us care for old, frail people whose minds are lost forever in the shadows? This book is a result of her quest for answers, of impeccable research into the world of caregiving to the dying. She examines death by choice--suicide, assisted and otherwise; advance medical directives; the bioethics of chasing death down by withdrawal of life support; dementia and how a caregiver may cope with it; hospice; and the quality of life. The eponymous chapter explores ways to determine quality and discovers objective criteria. Lembke interviewed many people and tells their stories. Among them are two women who helped a mother die, a rabbi, a Muslim bioethicist, and a man, survivor of not one but two kidney transplants, who worked with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. The book concludes with a list of resources, like the Alzheimer's Association, The Stroke Network, and Lifeline, a device for summoning help.