Did my friend starve to death

I think many of us have had relatives or friends in a similar situation. It is very hard to have to watch them going through this but there really isn’t a solution. I tried all sorts of foods that I thought might be possible for them to eat, always had different things on hand just in case, but nothing worked.

Just to say, in regard to what the doctor said, they could not have legally discussed her illness or any form of treatment with you, a friend. They were probably just shutting the discussion down.

Just to follow up on what others have said.

My DF died of dementia, a different form from your friend ExDancer. But that was the only thing on his Death Certificate. He didn't want to eat either. The last time I saw him alert, he had a square of chocolate with me, but I don't think he really wanted it, he just had it to please me.

One of the things that can happen to people with dementia is that they lose the ability to swallow; whether they forget how, or something more physical happens, I don't know. But towards the end for my dad, they couldn't even give him medication by mouth because he wasn't able to take it. He was very thin at the end, I could join my finger and thumb around his upper arm.

Condolences on the loss of your friend ExDancer, please don't worry about what happened.

Sorry for the loss of your friend my dad had vascular dementia and in the last year he lost loads of weight he just had no appetite and eating and swallowing became harder due to the nature of the illness
Vascular dementia is terminal and feeding through a drip or other means would be unlikely to have any benefit to the patient. My dad died of pneumonia he had become very weak and did spend the last few days of his life in a care home. We could have had him admitted to hospital but this would have distressed him more he was happy in the care of the home he was in.
Sometimes you cannot prevent the inevitable.

Condolences ExDancer 💐

My step-father had vascular dementia and one of if not the most difficult part was getting him to eat. He would refuse saying I will eat when I am hungry unfortunately he never ever felt hungry.

I am sorry to hear you lost your friend.

What makes you think the cause of death wasn't vascular dementia? You said that she forgot to eat.