EDITOR—We would like to respond to several criticisms of our study1 raised in Haynes's editorial2 and in Deeks and Juszczak's commentary.3

Haynes argues that our study is limited by patients refusing to participate or dropping out. In the context of studies in elderly people, we think that our refusal and follow up rates were reasonable. It is difficult to recruit elderly people into research studies4 and maintain their participation. Considerable drop out rates were expected because our sample consisted of frail …