Medical abortion.

need for long term follow up to determine whether the entity that they have defined represents an early manifestation of dementia or a benign if inconvenient consequence of growing old.'The National Institute of Mental Health's working group of which they were members published its criteria in 1986,3 and yet six years later we still do not know the answer.This information is of more than academic interest as it is bound to affect the risk:benefit ratio of any drug advocated to improve memory in elderly people.Crook and Ferris argue by analogy to presbyopia and its correction by means of lenses.A closer parallel might be the decline in physical prowess with age and its boosting with hormones.Both analogies are likely to be imperfect, and the issue is complex and unlikely to be resolved in the current state of knowledge.We do not automatically oppose the investigation of drugs to improve memory.What we want is more information about the baseline so that a more informed judgment may be made about the risks and benefits of their use.