AN elderly woman who suffered from dementia has died after mistaking laundry capsules "for sweets" prompting an urgent warning from a coroner. Elizabeth van der Drift, 93, was found on 19 March complaining of stomach ache and shortness of breath after ingesting the toxic laundry tablets and later died in hospital. An inquest after her death found that the elderly woman's fatality was a result of the hazarders consumption.
It also found aspiration pneumonia and dementia as contributing factors. The inquest heard how the laundry pod packaging "bore more than a passing resemblance to a bag of sweets" according to the Prevention of Future Deaths report (PFD). Based in central north London , the assistant coroner Ian Potter expressed his fears that regulation may pay "insufficient regard" to the risks posed to dementia sufferers .
Read more Health News Potter went on to explain how van der Drift had suffered from dementia for "a number of years" and would often "go in search in something to eat". He revealed that in mid-March the pensioner had "gained access to laundry detergent tablets or pods that were brightly coloured" and "bit into at least one of them". When describing the product that was later found as one factor into van der Drift's death, Potter explained that there was no element of the design to prevent someone with "even the most basic of manual dexterity" to access the "sweet-like" pods.
Despite Ms van der Drift being found a short time after consuming the product an.