First euthanasia in Netherlands of severe Alzheimer’s patient performed

Nov 9, 2011

THE HAGUE — A woman with advanced Alzheimer’s disease has been euthanized in the Netherlands, a first in a country that requires patients to be fully mentally alert to request to die, activists said Wednesday.

The 64-year-old woman died in March after being sick “for a very long time,” said a spokesman for the Right to Die-NL (NVVE) group.

She had insisted “for several years” that she wanted to be euthanized, added spokesman Walburg de Jong.

“It is really a very important step — before, patients dying by euthanasia were at really very early stages of dementia, which was not the case with this woman,” de Jong said. the rest