New Website Can Predict Odds of a Senior Dying

Palliative care specialists at the University of California plan to create a website that will contain geriatric calculators with the ability to predict the odds of a senior individual dying in the next six, four, or nine months. The website will not be available until fall, but researchers hope users of the site will understand that the averages the site produces will not determine the exact time an individual will die.

The New Old Age Blog recently asked its readers if they would utilize this website in their own or their family’s health care plans. Of the about 70 responding readers, most stated they would use the website in their future health care plans.

According to Paula Span, A Life Span Predictor? The Readers Have Spoken, New York Times New Old Age Blog, May 13, 2010, readers felt strongly about wanting access to this information:

Readers had various concerns and suggestions of their own, but they were fairly vehement about having access to such information. Not one thought the site should be restricted to people with medical initials after their names.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) for bringing this to my attention.