ABSTRACT

Aging is a continuous and universal process seen in all cre-atures which causes decrease in all functions. According to World Health Organisation the start of geriatric period is 65 years of age. Evaluating geriatric deaths help society to deter-mine health precedences.

In this study, medico-legal geriatric death cases between the years 2005 and 2009 in Denizli territory were examined retros-pectively. All of the cases were analyzed with regard to gender, age, cause of death, origin of death and place of death. The au-topsy records of Forensic Medicine Department of Pamukkale University Medical Faculty were used.

Geriatric deaths constituted 18.95% (251 cases) of all the medicolegal autopsy cases (1324) in this five years period. One-hundredseventyfive of them were male and 76 were female. Average of ages was 74,75 + 6,63. It was seen that accidental deaths were the most common way of the medicolegal cases which was followed by natural deaths. In natural deaths, cardi-ovascular diseases were the most often cause of death.

It is understood that medicolegal autopsies taken place in right conditions and done absolutely by a forensic medicine profession can provide a lot of data about elder deaths. With these datas, determination of causes and origins of death can help the removal of avoidable reasons.

Keywords: Old age, causes of death, forensic medicine