PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Vedamurthy Adhiyaman
AU  - Indrajit Chattopadhyay
TI  - Is it appropriate to link ‘old age’ to certain causes of death on the medical certificate of cause of death?
AID  - 10.7861/fhj.2021-0050
DP  - 2021 Aug 23
TA  - Future Healthcare Journal
PG  - fhj.2021-0050
4099  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2021/08/20/fhj.2021-0050.short
4100  - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2021/08/20/fhj.2021-0050.full
AB  - 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.