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Age and Ageing Advance Access originally published online on April 18, 2008
Age and Ageing 2008 37(4):396-402; doi:10.1093/ageing/afn061
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Copyright © The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.
The online version of this article has been published under an open access model. Users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The oldest old in England and Wales: a descriptive analysis based on the MRC Cognitive Function and Ageing Study

Jing Xie1, Fiona E. Matthews2, Carol Jagger3, John Bond4 and Carol Brayne1

1 Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge, CB2 0SR, UK
2 MRC Biostatistics Unit, Institute of Public Health, Cambridge, CB2 0SR, UK
3 Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 6TP, UK
4 Centre for Health Services Research, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4AA, UK

Address correspondence to: Fiona E. Matthews. Email: Fiona.matthews{at}mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk

Objective: to describe the characteristics and survival of the oldest old in England and Wales.

Design: retrospective analysis of the oldest old from a population-based cohort study.

Setting: population-based study in England and Wales: two rural and three urban sites.

Methods: two types of analyses were conducted: (i) a descriptive analysis of those individuals who were aged 90 years or more, and 100 years or more, and (ii) a survival analysis of those who reached their 90th, 95th, or 100th birthday during the study. Median survival time was calculated by the Kaplan–Meier method. Effects of socio-demographic characteristics on survival were evaluated using the Cox proportional-hazards regression model.

Results: in total, 958 individuals aged 90 years or more, and 24 individuals aged 100 years or more, had been interviewed at least once during the study. Twenty-seven per cent were living in residential or nursing homes. Women aged 90 years or more were more likely to be living in residential and nursing homes, be widowed, have any disability or have lower MMSE scores. The centenarians were mostly cognitively and functionally impaired. The median survival times for those reaching their 90th (n = 2,336), 95th (n = 638), or 100th birthday (n = 92) during the study were 3.7 years (95% CI: 3.5–4.0), 2.3 (2.1–2.6) and 2.1 (1.7–2.6) years for women, and 2.9 (95% CI: 2.6– 3.1), 2.0 (1.2–3.1) and 2.2 (0.5–2.3) for men, respectively. Those living in residential and nursing homes had a shorter survival when aged 90 years, with similar non-significant effects for those aged 95 and 100 years. After the age of 100 years, the high mortality rate and small sample size limited the ability to detect any differences between the different groups.

Conclusion: even at the very oldest ages, the majority live in non-institutionalised settings. Among the oldest old, women were frailer than men. Being male and living in residential nursing homes shortened survival in those aged 90 years or more.

Keywords: centenarians, nonagenarians, characteristics, survival, risk factors

Received 25 April 2007; accepted in revised form 30 October 2007.


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