We discuss cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and pollution endlessly. We celebrate medical advances that promise to keep us alive into our nineties and beyond. But we are reluctant to discuss the possibility that longer life may mean years of dementia, helplessness and costly dependence on relatives
I am 84 years old and face the inevitability of death. Ideally, I would like to die peacefully in my sleep, without pain. But the chances are growing that I will instead slide into dementia, lose my memory, fail to recognise my nearest and dearest, find strange people in my home who say and do things I cannot understand and ignore my protestations. I could find myself bewildered, frightened and helpless, unable to comprehend what is happening.