But it is the combination of the timing - the terminal diagnosis and the cognitive function - that makes this such a thread-the-eye-of-a-needle process for so many people. You certainly have to be able to display judgment and cognitive functioning and discernment, which I support entirely. And you have to be able to take the medication, the lethal dosage yourself, which for somebody with Alzheimer's might or might not be a problem, but for somebody with some other kind of disease, like ALS, would be a genuine obstacle to overcome. There are not that many doctors who are prepared to say this is an absolute fact. You have to find a doctor who will say that you will be dead in six months. It doesn't mean you have a terminal disease, you might be dead in a couple of years, you might be dead in a year and a half – six months. Nobody with dementia would qualify in any of those states because a terminal disease diagnosis is required, and "terminal" means that you will be dead within the next six months. On why Brian's case fell outside the purview of right-to-die laws that exist in certain U.S. The book also chronicles their life together and how it was changed by Alzheimer's. And that was very clear to him."īloom's new memoir, In Love, is centered around her husband's diagnosis and her quest to help him end his life in the manner he chose. "But he also completely understood that there was a window of cognitive functioning and that he had to make this decision and act on it within that window. "I'm sure that there were a number of circumstances, which, had they been different, he would have liked to have stayed longer," Bloom says. Instead, Bloom and Ameche wound up going to Zurich, where after a careful screening process, Ameche succeeded in terminating his life in late January 2020. have so-called "right to die" laws, Ameche did not fit their strict qualifications. "It was clear that the disease was taking its toll," she says.Īt Ameche's insistence, Bloom began researching options for assisted suicide. Bloom describes her husband as a man of action, whose fundamental principle was: "If there's going to be a fight, throw the first punch."īut as his Alzheimer's progressed, Bloom watched as her husband forgot the names of his grandchildren, and got lost in the neighborhood grocery store. This is what I need to do.'"īloom and Ameche had met later in life, and married in 2007. "He said, 'I don't want to argue about this. "He had strong feelings about people's rights to agency and autonomy," Bloom says. To learn more about what you heard on Fresh Air Weekend, click here.Shortly after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2019, architect Brian Ameche, then in his mid-60s, told his wife, novelist Amy Bloom, that he wanted to end life on his own terms, before the disease robbed him of everything.īloom was reluctant, but Ameche was resolute - and he needed her help. The show gives interviews as much time as needed, and complements them with comments from well-known critics and commentators.įind out more about the topics and guests year heard on Fresh Air Monday through Friday at the program's website here or read below.įresh Air Weekend is everything you love about Fresh Air, tailored for your Sunday evening. Its 1994 Peabody Award citation credits Fresh Air with "probing questions, revelatory interviews and unusual insights." And a variety of top publications count Gross among the country's leading interviewers. Though Fresh Air has been categorized as a "talk show," it hardly fits the mold. Terry Gross engages in intimate conversations heard by nearly 5 million people on more than 624 NPR stations across the country. Fresh Air with Terry Gross, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, opens the window on contemporary arts and issues with guests from worlds as diverse as literature and economics.
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