Instapundit links to a medicalxpress.com article summarizing research on diagnoses present at the death of seniors.
The study, published in JAMA Health Forum by a University of Michigan team, uses data from 3.5 million people over the age of 67 who died between 2004 and 2017. It focuses on the bills their providers submitted to the traditional Medicare system in the last two years of the patients' lives.
In 2004, about 35% of these end-of-life billing claims contained at least one mention of dementia, but by 2017 it had risen to more than 47%. Even when the researchers narrowed it down to the patients who had at least two medical claims mentioning dementia, 39% of the patients qualified, up from 25% in 2004.
The researchers attribute the change to changed Medicare reporting rules, allowing multiple diagnoses associated with patient mortality. But I wonder if other factors are present.
Might it not have something to do with people living longer? When I was a young person it wasn't uncommon to learn of men dying in their 50s, normally of heart attacks. The frequency of such deaths is much lower today. More people are controlling high blood pressure and fewer smoke.
I suspect if we live long enough we all begin to get a bit foggy mentally. If we grant the body gets more tired and weaker, the senses less keen, why not the mind as well?
