The Golden Rule is to do unto others as you would have others do unto you. This raises some interesting questions with regard to dementia as it is too late to consider how you would like to be treated, once you have the illness.
With dementia, our fate is in the hands of our nearest and dearest relatives. The question of treatment is a relative one: Will your relatives treat you the way that you would like to be treated or the way that they believe to be right for them? Will they do unto you, in old age, as they would like others to do unto them when they get old?
In our western society, we see death and dying as a problem that cannot be solved, so we do not talk about it with people who are dying. When someone gets dementia and we believe it to be a fatal illness, we tend to take control of the problem without discussing it with the patient. Once someone has dementia, it may simply be too late to discuss it with them anyway.
Many people spend their lives trying to solve other people’s problems, so when they suffer the symptoms of dementia, they may find it very difficult to discuss their own problems with others. They may believe that they do not have the right to tell other people how they would like other people to do unto them.
There is a legal procedure called a Lasting Power Of Attorney, which enables me to give responsibility for my health and my finances to someone whom I trust, when I become too mentally incapacitated to make my own decisions. However, nowhere in this document does it say how I would like others to do unto me. It allows the person that I appoint to do unto me what they believe to be best for me, which is usually what they believe is also best for them.
With or without dementia, we all want other people to help us decide what is best for us, but nobody ever wants to be told what is best for them because we all inherently know what is not good or right for ourself. With dementia, whatever someone else decides for me is going to happen, whether I like it or not.
Rebellion is recognised as a normal side effect of dementia and treated accordingly by professional carers. Under General Practitioner advice, depression is treated with stimulants and irrational behaviour is treated with sedatives. Is that a Golden Rule or just medical practice? When other people do unto you in a way that you feel is not right, it is normal & natural to rebel. Can we really trust our nearest and dearest to do unto us as they would have others do unto them?
The Golden Rule is the 2nd Commandment Of Jesus and it appears in every major religion in the world, although it is rarely preached in the Christian Church. Modern society tends to preach the Old Testament teaching of ‘an eye for an eye & a tooth for a tooth’, which translates as do unto others as others have done unto you.
Historically, what others do unto you when you get dementia is put you in a Nursing Home, even though it may be the last thing that they would ever want for themselves. In modern society, we are generally too busy working hard to have the time to look after our elderly relatives ourself. We all want what is best for our parents in old age but we all want someone else to deliver it for us. We look for the best solution to the current problems that other people are causing us, without first looking at whether this would be what we would choose in their situation.
With lasting power of attorney, you give someone else the legal right to put you in an institution, spend your money and decide when you should be allowed to die. This is a massive responsibility to give to someone to decide whose best interests they really have in their heart, especially in a society that generally makes rational decisions with their head.
Can I really know what is best for someone else? As we can never really know what is best for someone else, only what is best for ourself, the Golden Rule is a perfect way of deciding for other people. When I decide to do for someone else what I would choose someone else to do for me, there is never any question of guilt or shame, just integrity.
When I decide to do unto another what others have done unto others, I am open to experiencing the guilt and shame of other people’s experiences. What feels right in my mind does not always feel good in my heart. We may believe that old people should be treated with dignity but is it not better to make their decisions for them with integrity?
When a relationship is based on trust, I only have faith in someone with integrity. I always trust other people to do exactly what they believe is best for them, and I am rarely disappointed. We always choose what is best for ourselves in the belief that it therefore must be best for other people, which is an assumption that what is good for me must be good for other people.
Western society generally believes that what is good for people with dementia is to put them in a care home. We take care of our loved ones by getting someone else to take care of them. We put our loved ones into a low paid, local authority run system with basic standards of training and then complain bitterly when they are not cared for in a way that we would choose others to care for us.
The greatest hypocrisy is not following the Golden Rule when deciding someone else’s fate and then complaining when others do not follow the same rule as part of their professional practice.
Life is about choice, and making responsible choices for other people is a great responsibility. Everybody wants to give their advice without being held responsible for the advice that they give. The thing about choice is that it allows different ways of looking at everything in life:
- I can choose to do unto other people what is recognised by other people as the right thing to do.
- I can choose to do unto other people what I believe that other people would do unto me.
- I can choose to do unto others what I choose for others to do unto me.
Only one of these choices as a rule, is Golden.
Following the Golden Rule means that I do not have to consider what is best for someone else, I only have to consider whether what I am doing would be best for me in their given situation. To apply the Golden Rule, I have to have the ability to look at life from another person’s perspective. If I do not have the mental capacity to imagine what life is like from someone else’s perspective, I do not have the mental capacity to take responsible actions and make responsible decisions for other people.
In the absence of being able to see someone else’s point of view, I will always default to a choice that is best from my point of view. We spend our life trying to convince other people that what we believe is best for ourself must also be good for them. Similarly, when confronted with someone with dementia, am I convincing myself that what is best for them is also what is best for me or am I actually doing unto them what I would have them do unto me, in their given circumstances?