Canadian TikTok star, 49, ends life via MAID soon after Alzheimer’s diagnosis
· Toronto Sun
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A social media influencer from British Columbia ended her life through the MAID provision late last week.
Rebecca Luna, of Victoria, died on July 25, according to a post shared to her TikTok account over the weekend. She was 49 years old.
Luna was diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s at the age of 48.
In the days leading up to her death, she posted a message telling her more than 90,000 followers that she had moved up her MAID date to July 25 because her decline had come faster than expected.
“Prior to the dates changing for the last year and a half has been legally and medically not my choice,” Luna told her fans in her final video. “But for the last two weeks I’ve been making the decision. And it’s a hard decision to make, because I’m living in a body that doesn’t feel comfortable, safe, good, nothing. “It’s been a hard 24 hours, obviously. This is not what I wanted. I would have never chosen young onset Alzheimer’s for myself.”
About 3% of people are diagnosed with young-onset Alzheimer’s. Young-onset is defined as dementia under the age of 65. The Alzheimer Society of Canada estimates there are more than 700,000 people in Canada living with dementia of some form.
Her eldest daughter, Maya, confirmed her death.
Luna leaves behind two daughters.
MAID studies
The latest Government of Canada report on MAID was for the year 2024, titled the Sixth Annual Report on Medical Assistance in Dying in Canada. The findings were published on Nov. 28 of last year.
According to the study, Health Canada received 22,535 reports of MAID in 2024. A total of 16,499 people received the treatment; the remaining cases were requests that did not result in a MAID provision, as 4,017 died of another cause, 1,327 individuals were deemed ineligible and 692 withdrew their request.
In 2024, Quebec had the most MAID deaths with 5,998, or 36% of the total nationwide; Ontario was second with 4,944, or 30% of MAID deaths, and B.C. was third with 2,997 cases, or 18.2%.
The annual rate of growth in the number of MAID provisions has decreased over the past several years, from 36.8% between 2019 and 2020 to 6.9% between 2023 and 2024.
The government says there have been 76,475 MAID provisions since the legalization of MAID in 2016.