El suicidio y el Alzheimer

Llegó a mi pantalla el siguiente artículo de la parte de ética clínica de la BMJ, y que habla del suicidio como una opción frente al Alzheimer y otros tipos de demencia. 

Les dejo sólo el prólogo del mismo en su lenguaje original. Si quieren leerlo entero, cosa que recomiendo, puede verlo en: http://jme.bmj.com/content/40/8/543.full

Still Alice is a gripping novel by neuroscientist Lisa Genova, describing the experience of dementia from the perspective of the victim. Alice Howland is an eminent professor of psychology in her 50's when puzzling symptoms lead to the diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer disease (AD). She doesn't want to leave life too early, but she also doesn't want to sink into total dementia. She obtains a bottle of sleeping pills and sets up a failsafe method, where her faithful smartphone buzzes once a day to remind her to take a simple quiz. The message directs her that when she is no longer able to remember the names of her children or the current month of the year, she should go directly to her computer, open a folder marked ‘Butterfly’, and do what it tells her. Over the next 2 years, she responds to the quiz but fails to notice that she is answering the questions at first with less specificity and later with wrong responses. Eventually the smartphone is ruined when she leaves it in the freezer, and it is not replaced. One day she is randomly opening folders on her computer when she happens upon ‘Butterfly’. She is astounded to find there a letter addressed to her from her former self. Among general messages of love and reassurance, she reads:

"You wrote this letter to yourself when you were of sound mind.... You can no longer trust your own judgment, but you can trust mine, your former self. You before Alzheimer's took too much of you away....I love you and I'm proud of you, of how you've lived and all that you've done while you could. Now, go to your bedroom. Go to the black table next to the bed, the one with the blue lamp on it. Open the drawer to that table. In the back of the drawer is a bottle of pills. The bottle has a white label on it that says FOR ALICE in black letters. There are a lot of pills in that bottle. Swallow all of them with a big glass of water. Make sure you swallow all of them. Then, get in the bed and go to sleep." "Go now, before you forget. And do not tell anyone what you're doing. Please trust me." "Love,"

 "Alice Howland"