Bigger ears await us all

• Published date: 03 December 2022
• Publication title: Mix, The

Assoc Prof Yoram Barak, Department of Psychological Medicine, Otago University, responded

This is an exciting question for specialists in pathology, plastic surgery, geriatricians and gerontologists.

Most work on age estimation of adults relates to forensic work on corpses using bones or dentition. Estimates of age made by forensic scientists and archaeologists tend to underestimate the ages of older people, and overestimate the ages of younger people, reflecting, in part, a regression to the mean phenomenon.

In many non-Western countries, it is common for people not to know the date and month of their birth, and, in some areas and socioeconomic strata, it is common not to know one’s year of birth. There are many reasons for inaccurate or indeterminate birth dates: dates of birth may be customarily pegged against agricultural dates such as the first harvest; documents may have been lost or destroyed or births may not have been registered because of a lack of access to governmental institutions. While the issue of ‘‘indeterminate age’’ is becoming less frequent in the younger generations in most countries, it is widespread among older cohorts.

Age should be estimated through physical examination, life history, matching local or national events with personal milestones; and existing non-formal documents. Accuracy of age estimation should be subject...