Cause of death (sorry a bit morbid. Maybe triggering)

[HelloDoggy]

Was reading that the queen's official cause of death was 'old age'. Which got me thinking - what is this? When someone old dies, what actually happens? I always assumed there was something which caused the death like a heart attack, cancer, malnutrition, or something. What does dying by 'old age' actually mean? Surely something in the body must have 'broken'/'stopped working'? Why isn't that something noted as the cause of death?

Age can't kill you surely. It must be the consequence of aging that kill you?

I'm pleased the Queen was allowed some privacy in death but you're right, dying of old age is an odd thing to put on a legal document. You die of a stroke, or a heart attack. Dying of old age suggests someone had been bed bound and deteriorating for weeks. Not someone who was doing official duties on the Tues and clearly had some sudden event on the Thursday.

Does Scotland have its own guidelines about when to say "Old Age" on a death certificate, different rules from England?

Weird events of the morning... Teen DS (on paper round) found a dead person (customer). DH went round to wait for ambulance & tried giving the body chest compressions. We were just talking about how much might that death be investigated. We have impression the deceased was an older person, had ambulances around his home often, was in chronic poor health.

3 out of 4 of my grandparents have "old age" as the cause of death on their certificates (all well over 90 and died at home with no specific preceding illness).

Maybe it's a difference between Scottish and English rules?

Not sure why there's this odd conspiracy theory around the death certificate of a frail 96 year old.

My dog died of old age, over 24 hours his organs all just slowed down until his heart stopped, the vet told us that all his organs were just too fragile to cope with any of the others upsetting the balance, although none were technically damaged or diseased.

He was given painkillers and an appointment to be PTS the next day but slipped away peacefully in his sleep.

Does it really matter though. At 96, a reason is hardly going to be useful.

The term might be "natural causes" in England. but the Queen died in Scotland. "Old age" is a perfectly acceptable cause of death.

Well in the case of Harold shipman, they definitely should have! He was able to get away with so much because of ‘old age’.

nothing to do with the Queen obviously. She really did just wear out I think.

Sorry the quote didn’t post, but I was saying that while no autopsy in this case was necessary, there would be instances where it probably is, despite ‘old age’

Like when you have a really old car - it's clearly not going to last forever, but there will be one thing which ultimately causes it's final demise - the battery dies or the door falls off and it's too old to be fixed.

The car analogy doesn't work because a car is never "too old" to be fixed. Too expensive to fix, definitely, but not too old. Look at some of the early cars from the 1890s that are still running. Many of them are like Trigger's broom in Only Fools and Horses in that barely anything of them is original. Things have been replaced at different times, new wheels here and new bodywork there.

The human body is not the same. There comes a point where it can't be fixed.

Our organs have an expiry date and there’s only so many times our cells can renew themselves.

When they finally get to a certain point the cells stop renewing and the organs start to work less and then ultimately fail.
Like a bouquet of flowers, they slowly start to gradually die.

I don’t know what organs shut down first or if it’s the same for everyone or if they all simultaneously start failing.

I find it really interesting and weird to die of old age and that your body just expires.

Not necessarily, a stroke or heart attack is an acute event usually caused by some underlying pathology such as heart disease or a clotting event.

Old age causes a general decline in organ function and biochemistry. Sometimes very old people just go to sleep and don’t wake up, especially if they’ve become frail and aren’t eating as well as they used to. The Queen had become visibly thinner, more frail and looked very old fairly quickly.

Human bodies are essentially complicated machines, and don’t last forever.

My aunt just gradually ate less and drank less until she couldn’t eat or drink as she could no longer swallow, then over the next 2 days you could visibly see her body was shutting down. The skin colour changes, the breathing changes and then she passed away.
It also says old age on her death certificate.

DH grandmother’s was similar and was very odd it said something like grand old age, she was 98.

Medical Examiner is a US term, and HMQ died in Scotland, so if the death were unexpected/unexplained, it would be reported to the Procurator Fiscal (parallel function to Coroners elsewhere in UK)

Old age/frailty owing to old age is an acceptable cause of death provided that the deceased is over 80 and there is no obvious other cause such as stroke or acute infection.

Dying of old age suggests someone had been bed bound and deteriorating for weeks.

No, that’s not right. “Bed bound and deteriorating for weeks” would indicate illness, not old age.

I had a parent die this year, aged 91, the DC says ‘old age’.

When my grandfather died at 98 it would have been old age. However, my aunt wanted an autopsy which revealed bowel cancer. Maybe the Queen had underlying issues which were undiagnosed but the family wanted to leave it as old age?

FIL's dad died at home in his mid nineties. He experienced two years of gradual decline followed by a few months of more steady decline, and finally two weeks almost bed-bound being cared for by family round the clock, which sounds not dissimilar to the Queen's last few years. Fairly certain his death certificate recorded frailty of old age. He had the usual gamut of mild to moderate health problems typical at the stage of life, but at no point was anything discussed as sufficient to be a likely cause of death by itself.

My 93 year old mum died of pneumonia but they put old age on the certificate. Same with my 90 year old MIL who had COPD.

she also didn’t go suddenly. They basically reported she was gravely Ill a few hours before they announced she was dead. So it was something else and they aren’t saying.

Knowing that someone is dying does not equate to the cause being "something else". It is equally compatible with a very old person's system gradually shutting down so that it is clear death is going to happen soon.

of course you can die of old age. It’s simply a wearing out snd a stopping working. Which is very different from something like a heart attack or stroke which is an event.

It’s perfectly valid, biologically and legally.

I think ‘death by natural causes due to old age’ would have looked more appropriate. I knew somebody who was an auxiliary nurse & one day an elderly fellow came in, she said he was absolutely lovely. It was night time & he’d just come in so they (herself & another nurse) settled him into his bed & as they made there way back to the nurses station the other nurse said “you know why he’s in here don’t you” & my friend replied “no why?”. The nurse replied “because he’s dying”. They had only been at the nurses station about 10 minutes when another nurse came running down the corridor & asked if they had checked him, they replied they had & asked why, she said “because he’s passed away”. She said they went to look for themselves & she said she had never seen anyone with such a peaceful look on his face, almost as if he was smiling. We were both carers at the time & saw & experienced some interesting things.

My grandad's death certificate had both old age and heart failure on it. He didn't have any heart problems before that, I guess like many said, his body just gave up. He was about 84 I think.

🤣🤣

Quite.
Or about 15 threads since yesterday all asking the same thing in a thinly veiled conspiracy theorist way.