More needs to be done to meet the health needs of the growing number of centenarians, experts warn today.
A team from King’s College London, UK, say that more than 35,000 people have lived to 100 years or older in England over the last decade, and the rate is on the rise. Many of these individuals eventually succumb to "frailty exacerbated by pneumonia", say the team, led by Dr Catherine Evans.
The researchers looked at the health and social care needs of centenarians compared to younger groups of older people and the implications for health policy and services.
They investigated the cause of death of 35,867 centenarians in England from 2001 to 2010. Most (87%) of the centenarians were women, and 85% were widowed.
England’s areas of highest deprivation had the lowest rate of centenarian deaths, with the North East of England having the lowest rate, at 4%. The majority of the deaths (about 60%) occurred in a residential or nursing care home, a quarter in hospital, a tenth at home and very few (0.2%) in a hospice.
Regarding cause of death, "old age" was recorded on 28% of death certificates, followed by pneumonia (18%) and other respiratory diseases (6%), stroke (10%), heart disease (9%) and other circulatory diseases (10%), dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (6%), and cancer (4%).
The study is published today (4 June) in the journal PLoS Medicine.
Dr Evans said: "We need to plan for health care services that meet the ‘hidden needs’ of this group, who may decline rapidly if they succumb to an infection or pneumonia. We need to boost high quality care home capacity and responsive primary and community health services to enable people to remain in a comfortable, familiar environment in their last months of life."
Evans, C. J. et al. Place and Cause of Death in Centenarians: A Population-Based Observational Study in England, 2001 to 2010. PLoS Medicine 4 June 2014 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001653 [abstract]
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