Is it appropriate to link ‘old age’ to certain causes of death on the medical certificate of cause of death?

In the current list of acceptable causes of death in the medical certificate of cause of death, some causes are either linked to old age or could be used for all people over the age of 80 years. Notable ones include ‘frailty of old age’, ‘debility of old age’ and ‘senility’. It is best to avoid thes...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFuture healthcare journal Vol. 8; no. 3; pp. e686 - e688
Main Authors Adhiyaman, Vedamurthy, Chattopadhyay, Indrajit
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Elsevier Ltd 01.11.2021
Royal College of Physicians
Subjects
debility
frailty
MCCD
old age
Research Letter
senility
frailty
debility
MCCD
senility
old age
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Summary:In the current list of acceptable causes of death in the medical certificate of cause of death, some causes are either linked to old age or could be used for all people over the age of 80 years. Notable ones include ‘frailty of old age’, ‘debility of old age’ and ‘senility’. It is best to avoid these terms as they provide an erroneous impression that these conditions occurred because a person was old; we recommend that the list of acceptable causes of death is revised by engaging all stakeholders.
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ISSN:2514-6645
2514-6653
DOI:10.7861/fhj.2021-0050