A large amount of research literature shows that persons with severe neurological injuries, whether from cerebral palsy, traumatic brain injury, or spinal cord injury, are subject to greater mortality rates than persons of the same age and sex in the general population. This is especially true when motor function is seriously impaired. It follows as a mathematical consequence that their life ex...

In 1991, the National Task Force on Health Information recommended that in order to assess the health of Canadians, the health information system should include an aggregate index of population health. This article presents such an index--Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy (HALE)--as one possibility in a range of indicators. In contrast to conventional life expectancy, which considers all years as...

OBJECTIVES To examine trends in life expectancy at birth and age and cause specific patterns of mortality in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Poland during political transition and throughout the 1990s in both parts of Germany and in Poland. METHODS Decomposition of life expectancy by age and cause of death. Changes in life expectancy during transition by cause of death were ex...

The official 1990-92 detailed life tables show a continuation of the trend toward longer life expectancy for Canadians (see Life tables). Life expectancy at birth has reached an all-time high: 80.89 years for females and 74.55 years for males. Recent improvements in life expectancy are attributable to many factors, including declines in infant mortality, cerebrovascular and cardiovascular disea...

It is observed that few patients over the age of 60 regularly attend the keratoconus clinic at Moorfields Eye Hospital. The hypothesis that patients with keratoconus have a shorter life expectancy owing to underlying connective tissue related disease was tested. From patient records a sample of 337 keratoconus patients aged at least 40 years by 1991 were identified, of which 279 were living, 13...