On Thu, 2005-01-27 at 05:09, USM Bish wrote: > > I am of the view, that there is no requirement of age at all. > What is needed is the date of birth in the initial record. > After that every time the patient/ individual seeks medical > attendance, the age is automatically calculated. This is of > special relevance in paediatric practice. > > The concept of 'age' varies with context and usage, and it is > best to avoid anything arbitrary or non-specific.
Interesting discussion. The above comments are very close to my own thoughts on this when I first read Sam's proposal. The ideas presented in the other replies are certainly valid. In the case of neonatal work (as I understand it from the physicians) there are certain rules of thumb they use based on the (estimated) date of conception compared with the due date and again compared with the actual date of birth, modified by factors such as IVF, AI, multiple births etc......to determine level of prematurity. My point in that paragraph is to augment my argument that the concept of 'age' should NOT be in the model. While date of birth and estimated date of conception SHOULD be in the model. Any further handling of the concept of age is an application specific problem. As has been identified by other posts in this thread, age is a very context sensitive idea. -- Sincerely, Tim Cook Key ID 9ACDB673 @ http://www.keyserver.net/en/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: This is a digitally signed message part URL: <http://lists.openehr.org/mailman/private/openehr-technical_lists.openehr.org/attachments/20050127/dd5f8c3f/attachment.asc>
