ABSTRACT
Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify the cause of death in elderly patients stratified by age in a general hospital during 15 years.
Methods: The authors retrospectively analyzed the cause of death in a cohort of deceased patients aged 65 years and over, who were divided into three groups as young-old (65-74 yrs, n=1050), old-old (75-84 yrs, n=944), and oldest-old (≥85 yrs, n=344), and who were admitted to a general hospital in Beijing from May 1996 till May 2011.
Results: There are totally 2338 patients (1409 male, 929 female) aged 65 years and older admitted to and eventually died in our hospital in this period. The 5 major cause of death by the order were neoplasm (777, 33.2%), circulatory (648, 27.7%), respiratory (541, 23.1%), digestive (163, 7.0%) diseases and injuries (70, 3.0%). However, in the oldest old group, they were respiratory (126, 36.6%), circulatory (95, 27.6%), neoplasm (61, 17.7%), digestive (28, 8.1%) diseases and injuries (26, 7.6%). The proportion of patients died by neoplasm is significantly lower, while that of respiratory system diseases and injuries significantly higher in the older groups than in the younger groups (P<0.01). The proportion of patients died by neoplasm is negatively correlated with age (r=-0.938, P=0.000), while that by respiratory diseases was positively correlated with age (r=0.785, P=0.000).
Conclusion: More attention should be paid to the prevention and management of neoplasm for younger group, while of respiratory system diseases for older group of elderly to fulfill their longevity.
Manuscripts that are Published Ahead of Print have been peer reviewed and accepted for publication by the Editorial Board of the West Indian Medical Journal. They may appear in their original format and may not be copy edited or formatted in the style guide of this Journal. While accepted manuscripts are not yet assigned a volume, issue or page numbers, they can be cited using the DOI and date of e-publication. See our Instructions for Authors on how to properly cite manuscripts at this stage. The contents of the manuscript may change before it is published in its final form. Manuscripts in this section will be removed once they have been issued to a volume and issue, but will still retain the DOI and date of e-publication.
Our 7 faculties and 12 professional schools offer more than 200 programmes to some 18,000 graduate, undergraduate and continuing studies students.
The UWI, Mona ranks first in Jamaica among accredited tertiary-level programmes. In 2012, the University was again one of Jamaica’s Top 100 Employers.
