‘Une autre histoire’ by Chantal Cadieux

Une autre histoire is a TV series written by Chantal Cadieux that aired on Radio-Canada from 2019 to 2022. Over four seasons, it tells the story of Anémone Leduc who finds out in the pilot episode that she has early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Anémone, who is fifty-three years old in the pilot, is the mother of three adult children, recently widowed, and working at a funeral home in the fictional town of Belleville, Quebec. However, Anémone has a secret. More than thirty years ago, she escaped an abusive marriage, which required her to change her name and leave behind her three children from that marriage. Anémone’s diagnosis requires her to reckon with her past life when she is told that her Alzheimer’s is hereditary and learns that her children have a one in two chance of inheriting the gene. Anémone tells the children from her second marriage, Karla, Simon, and Olivia, that they have three half-siblings from her first marriage, Caroline, Sébastien, and Jean-Olivier, before seeking them out with the help of a private investigator. The initial meetings with Caroline, Sébastien, and Jean-Olivier go poorly, but eventually they reconcile. Karla learns that she has inherited the genes that make her predisposed to Alzheimer’s, while Sébastien is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at the end of the second season. Sébastien’s decline is rapid, and he becomes frightened, confused, and aggressive. His story culminates in his death from cardiac arrest in the series finale. For her part, Anémone is cared for by her family and friends, including her ex-husband Ron with whom she reconciles. She expresses concern that she is a burden to her family because she requires extensive care. Over time, she experiences more severe memory lapses that prompt her to ask her doctor for medical assistance in dying (MAID) in the penultimate episode. In the series finale, Anémone dies by MAID, peacefully at home, with her entire family and several friends by her side. The series closes with her six children reading from the notebook that Anémone used to keep track of her memories, which she left them upon her death.

Une autre histoire’s finale aired in 2022, by which time MAID was well-established in Canada. Despite this, MAID for patients with dementia remains a subject of debate in the country. A 2021 amendment to Canada’s MAID regime, known as ‘Audrey’s Amendment,’ allows for the final consent immediately before receiving MAID to be waived under certain conditions, including that the person’s natural death is reasonably foreseeable and that they do not demonstrate resistance to the administration of MAID. However, the waiver of final consent is often not available for people with dementia because their natural death is not reasonably foreseeable when they lose decision-making capacity. For this reason, there have been calls to amend the law to allow advance requests for MAID following a diagnosis of a serious and incurable medical condition that leads to incapacity, like Alzheimer’s. This concern is addressed in Une autre histoire, where Anémone choses a date for MAID as her symptoms worsen, even though she is often still lucid. She does so because she fears that if she delays, she will miss the window where she has capacity to consent to MAID. This choice causes pushback from family members, who feel that she is rushing her decision, and therefore find it difficult to supportive. Anémone’s final consent is shown in the finale, as is the administration of the fatal drugs. Her death is portrayed as sad, but also as peaceful and the right choice for Anémone and her family. The finale was applauded in Québec media for its treatment of MAID and its message of hope. In October 2024, Quebec changed its legal regime to allow people with a serious and incurable illness leading to incapacity -- for example, Alzheimer’s disease -- to make an advance request for medical aid in dying under certain conditions and without giving further consent. At the time of writing in October 2025, no changes have been made at a federal level to allow advance requests in any other Canadian province.