Irish Research Challenges Perception Of Painful Death

We need more research like the work reported in this piece.

There's more to dying than death

FEW ILLNESSES are as feared as Motor Neurone Disease (MND). The autoimmune condition, which attacks the central nervous system, is irreversible, incurable and nearly always fatal. The time from diagnosis to death takes an average of between two and five years.

It is the condition most obviously brought to mind when people consider the issue of assisted suicide. . . . [and] informed the work of former nurse Sinéad O’Toole, who is now a lecturer at the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems in UCD.

O’Toole has interviewed the relatives of 21 people who died from MND for her PhD. She presented the results as a paper to the Irish Association of Palliative Care (IAPC) recently. more