General Article Here's what people in their 90s really think about death

Topic Selected: Ageing
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Jane Fleming, University of Cambridge

This is one of two final articles in our Coping with Mortality series. Today’s accompanying piece explains the importance of effectively using palliative care services. You can read previous articles in our series here.


Across the developed world more people are living longer, which of course means more get to be extremely old by the time they die. Nearly half of all deaths in the United Kingdom are in people aged 85 or older, up from only one in five just 25 years ago.

Dying in older age can mean a different sort of death, such as becoming gradually frailer in both body and mind and developing numerous health problems over many years. Where years after retirement were previously considered just old age, a longer life span means the later years now include variation reflected in labels such as younger old and older old.

Our previous research showed people who are over 90 when they die need more support with daily life in their last year than ev...

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