The Unspoken Diagnosis: Old Age - The New York Times

Dr. Alexander K. Smith is a brave man.

It has taken physicians a very long time to accept the need to level with patients and their families when they have terminal illnesses and death is near — and we know that many times those kinds of honest, exploratory conversations still don’t take place.

Now Dr. Smith, a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who also practices at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and two co-authors are urging another change, one they acknowledge would “radically alter” the way health care professionals communicate with their very old patients.

In a recent article in The New England Journal of Medicine, they suggested offering to discuss “overall prognosis,” doctorspeak for probable life expectancy and the likelihood of death, with patients who don’t have terminal illnesses. The researchers favor broaching the subject with anyone who has a life expectancy of less than 10 years or has reached age 85.

“Advanced age itself is the greatest predictor of poor prognosis,” Dr. Smith told me in an interview.

By age 85, the article points out, the average remaining life expectancy for Americans is six years. An 85-year-old has a 75 percent chance of living another three years, but only a one in four chance of surviving for 10. Which category a particular old person falls into has much to do with the medical problems he or she has, or doesn’t have, and with his or her ability to function.

When the odds are that they have only a few remaining years, should doctors discuss that with them?

Dr. Smith and his co-authors, Dr. Brie Williams and Dr. Bernard Lo — a geriatrician and an internist, respectively — vote yes. “This is about empowering patients to make informed choices and encouraging individual decision-making,” he said.

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