Is old age necessarily connected with high hospital admission rates?

The proportion of old people in a population is often taken as an indicator of the perceived need for and utilization of health services. What is the relation between age and hospital admission rates, and has it changed over time? These questions are investigated by a study of hospital statistics. In 1930 hospitalization rates were approximately the same for all age groups. In 1950 there was an increase with increasing age for men, but not for women, who had experienced a general increase in all age groups. In 1979 there was a pronounced increase in hospitalization rates in the high age groups for both sexes; this increase has been even more marked in the decades since. The number of admissions per 1,000 inhabitants over 64 years of age increased from 296 in 1979 to 418 in 1993. Changes in diagnoses and operation patterns for old patients during the last decade illustrate marginal changes in disease patterns and a slight increase in some types of surgery. An increase in readmission rates contributes substantially to the overall increase. The proportion of old people in a population tells us very little about perceived need for health services and cannot be used to predict hospital admission rates.