Death-risk test launched
Researchers have come up with 12 risk factors that may help predict your chances of dying in the next four years.
Aimed at the over 50s, the test doesn’t ask what you eat, but it does ask if you can push a living room chair across the floor.
A score of zero to five means your risk of dying in four years is less than 4%. With 14 points, your risk rises to 64%.
Just being male gives you two points. So does having diabetes, being a smoker, and getting worn out on short walks.
Points accrue with each four-year increment after age 60.
The quiz is designed “to try to help doctors and families get a firmer sense of what the future may hold”, and to help plan health care accordingly, says lead author Dr Sei Lee, a researcher at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Centre, who helped develop the test.
“It’s a very natural human question of: ‘What’s going to happen to me?'" said Dr Lee.
This test is roughly 81% accurate and can give older people a reasonable idea of their survival chances, according to Mr Lee and his colleagues.
Of course, it isn’t foolproof. Other experts note it ignores family history and it’s much less meaningful for those at the young end of the spectrum.
Co-author and VA researcher Dr Kenneth Covinsky points out that there are things you can do to improve your chances if you get a bad score, such as quitting smoking or taking up exercise.
The test is based on data involving 11,701 Americans over 50 who took part in a national health survey in 1998.
Funded by a grant from the country’s national institute on ageing, the researchers analysed participants’ outcomes during a four-year follow-up. They based their death risk survey on the health characteristics that seemed to predict death within four years.
Their report appears in tomorrow’s Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr Donald Jurvich, geriatrics chief at the University of Illinois at Chicago, praised the survey for measuring people’s ability to function – such as being able to move a piece of furniture or keep track of expenses – signs that can be more telling than other health factors.
However, Dr George Lange, a 57-year-old internist at Columbia-St Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee, faulted the test for not measuring blood pressure or cholesterol.
