Trajectories of Disability in the Last Year of Life

Despite the importance of functional status to older persons and their families, little is known about the course of disability at the end of life.

We evaluated data on 383 decedents from a longitudinal study involving 754 community-dwelling older persons. None of the subjects had disability in essential activities of daily living at the beginning of the study, and the level of disability was ascertained during monthly interviews for more than 10 years. Information on the conditions leading to death was obtained from death certificates and comprehensive assessments that were completed at 18-month intervals after the baseline assessment.