de Haas RTD2019_Provoking the Debate.pdf (1.07 MB)
Provoking the debate on euthanasia in dementia with design.
conference contribution
posted on 2019-05-02, 08:42 authored by M. De Haas, Sue HignettSue Hignett, Gyuchan Thomas JunGyuchan Thomas JunDementia affects 47 million people worldwide. It is a collection or consequence of many
illnesses with symptoms including deterioration in
memory, thinking and behaviour; it is a terminal
disease. The fear of dementia leads people to request
euthanasia. Euthanasia in dementia rarely happens
because the dementia symptoms conflict with the
due care criteria; a person requesting euthanasia
must confirm the request at time of death and must
be undergoing hopeless suffering. Once dementia
has progressed, the euthanasia ‘wish’ can no longer
be confirmed, and assessing suffering in a person
with dementia is hard. Having a reliable dementia
diagnosis is essential in order to be able to make a
decision for an ‘early’ euthanasia. This paper describes a Speculative Design to explore what options
should be considered for receiving a dementia diagnosis in order to plan a death. A branding strategy
was developed for the Planned Death company, who
advocate an early diagnosis for making end-of-life
decisions. The branding includes company identity,
website, diagnostic kit, diagnostic delivery strategy,
and end-of-life support. Additionally a short documentary was developed describing the Planned
Death Company’s motivation and a client testimonial.
Responses to the documentary were collected with
a carefully selected group of participants through a
survey and in-depth interviews. The responses were
rich and sparked debate. Many new questions arose
to do with patient autonomy and social structures.
History
School
- Design
Published in
4th Biennial Research Through Design ConferenceCitation
DE HAAS, M., HIGNETT, S. and JUN, G.T., 2019. Provoking the debate on euthanasia in dementia with design. IN: Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Research Through Design Conference, 19-22 March 2019, Delft and Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Article 21, 1-20.Version
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Publication date
2019Notes
This is an Open Access Article. It is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Publisher version
Language
- en