I agree with using date of birth for making the determination of an individual's age, as long as we have support for relative age for concepts such as puberty, menopause, at an age of risk given their family history of a malignance with a first degree relative whose onset of illness was at a certain age. Relative age also includes number of years since an event like an MI or a CABG which are both medically relevant relative periods of time which are a type of age (years since event) with clinical relevance.
Warm regards, Peter Peter L. Elkin, MD Professor of Medicine Director, Laboratory of Biomedical Informatics Department of Internal Medicine Mayo Clinic, College of Medicine Mayo Clinic, Rochester (507) 284-1551 Fax: (507) 284-5370 -----Original Message----- From: owner-openehr-technical at openehr.org [mailto:owner-openehr-techni...@openehr.org] On Behalf Of William E Hammond Sent: Monday, January 31, 2005 6:32 PM To: Gerard Freriks Cc: OpenEHR Technical; USM Bish Subject: Re: Age Who are you calling elderly? I still hold out for age, even if it is fuzzy. Ed Gerard Freriks <gfrer at luna.nl>@openehr.org on 01/31/2005 04:25:17 PM Please respond to Gerard Freriks <gfrer at luna.nl> Sent by: owner-openehr-technical at openehr.org To: William E Hammond <hammo001 at mc.duke.edu> cc: OpenEHR Technical <openehr-technical at openehr.org>, USM Bish <bish at hathway.com> Subject: Re: Age Dear all, It is fine for me when we can agree that we mean by 'Age' time after birth. How will we name and define concepts like: youth, post conception, post gestation, middel aged, elderly? Gerard -- <private> -- Gerard Freriks, arts Huigsloterdijk 378 2158 LR Buitenkaag The Netherlands +31 252 544896 +31 654 792800 On 31 Jan 2005, at 19:10, William E Hammond wrote: > For an age, I agree that the date of birth is adequate as long as you > remember people do not age after they die. It is also convenient to > have a > reference time mark for many things, including conception, start of a > course of treatment. Adjectives and nouns are difficult to put into > algorithms unless the definitions are precise. > > Ed Hammond - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org - If you have any questions about using this list, please send a message to d.lloyd at openehr.org
