IT'S all very well for Martyn Callaghan to espouse the dignified egress from this world enjoyed by those people lucky enough to end their days in a hospice (Letters, February 4).

What about the increasing percentage of people who suffer from dementia in their old age?

Their lot is to be dispatched to so-called care homes where they will be drugged up to the eyeballs to control any wayward tendencies and will be reduced in a very short space of time to shuffling zombies.

Where is the dignity in that?

I think that Margaret Lawson (Letters, February 1), along with the rest of us over a certain age, should be very concerned indeed about the poor quality of life which we are likely to endure in our final months and years. Perhaps a trip to Switzerland would not be such a bad idea after all.

Elizabeth Hockley,

Boroughbridge Road, York.

Updated: 10:45 Monday, February 13, 2006