Mortality trends of elderly people in Taiwan from 1974 to 1994.

BACKGROUND: the hypothesis that disability and death will eventually be compressed to a period late in life needs empirical confirmation. OBJECTIVES: we have examined the secular trends of life expectancy and common causes of death in the aged population of Taiwan. METHOD: we compared the life expectancy, causes of death and probability of death for people at birth, at age 65 and at age 85 for both sexes from 1974 to 1994 using data from Taiwan government statistics. RESULTS: there has been a substantial gain in life expectancy, especially for men age 85 and over, in the past 20 years. .Mortality due to stroke, ischaemic heart disease, hypertension and chronic pulmonary disease has declined. There has been a steep increase in cancer deaths and deaths associated with diabetes mellitus. Tuberculosis and injury-related deaths have declined but pneumonia deaths have increased. For elderly people, the probability of dying from cancer and ischaemic heart disease increased with time. However, the probability of dying from stroke decreased. Although there was a decrease in probability of deaths associated with falls, there was an increase of deaths due to 'frailty' (as judged by falls, pneumonia and septicaemia). CONCLUSIONS: cancer is a major cause of death in the elderly population of Taiwan. This rapidly expanding elderly population seemed to suffer from poorer health in the later period of their life.