Re: [Gnumed-devel] Estimated age

[Busser, Jim]

On 2012-01-19, at 9:15 PM, Vaibhav Banait wrote:

> Hi
> Many countries will have population which is not aware of dob. Therefore, if 
> we put estimated age as a demographic optional parameter with calculations of 
> further age from estimated year, it should be very useful. If I am not very 
> clear, please have a look at online Openmrs demo.
> Regards 
> Vaibhav 

Instead of creating a

        date of birth variant = year of birth

in the identity table (because in this instance it is of no real use in 
identification) I am thinking we are talking this age proxy as a "clinical 
measurement" to be used with other clinical parameters in things like risk 
prediction.

I am wondering therefore whether this entity could fit into a clinical 
measurement.

If yes, then for example LOINC has a code

        30525-0         Age

which is age in seconds at a point in time. Therefore if at a visit it is 
believed or indicated that a patient is 69 years old with no precision on date 
of birth, the measurement of age of

        69 years
        x 365.25 days
        x 24 x 60 x 60

        = age (in seconds) as of the datetimestamp of entry.

In order for this to be useful, any computations in GNUmed would need to have a 
construct

        age =

                if date of birth is non-null

                        then age = current datetime - date of birth

                elif a value for LOINC 30525-0 exists

                        then age = current datetime - (datetime of measurement) 
+ value of entry

I would wonder whether it should be somewhere in the praxis configuration that 
GNUmed could be instructed where to look for a definition of  this alternate 
definition of age.

-- Jim