Lee Steeneck wrote a paper titled "Actuarial Note on Workmen's Compensation - Loss Reserves - 25 Years Later" that was published in the summer 1996 Casualty Actuarial Society Forum. His article gave the results of mortality studies for Quads and Paraplegics from a couple sources, expressed as a percent of normal mortality (i.e. the force of mortality for a quad is X times the normal force of mortality). He did not differentiate this relative mortality by age.
I have also heard that the University of Alabama at Birmingham was an excellent source for this kind of information, at least for quads and paras. As confirmation of this, I did a quick internet search (using Yahoo, and the words "spinal cord". Using "quadraplegic" as a search word did not work well). This led me to "http://www.sci.rehabm.uab.edu/", which then led me to several articles on "life expectancies" (searching this web site using "mortality" did not produce any hits, but several articles were listed under "life expectancies"). All this took about 5 minutes. I will leave it to others to see if these articles are useful.
As to Tramatic Brain Injury cases, I have not yet heard of a good mortality data source, but I haven't started looking yet. I suspect there is something out there on the web, if you search using the right key words. One word of caution: my understanding is that the science of spinal cord injuries accelerated during or soon after WW2, therefore there have been people tracking this condition for decades. I am skeptical that the same track record exists for tramatic brain injury cases, as I thought that this "science" didn't start accelerating until the 60's or later. Feedback anyone?
To: "Scott Henck" <scott.henck@prudential.com>
From: "Patrick L. Brockett" <brockett@mail.utexas.edu>
Subject: Re: life expectancy tables
While I know of no published tables by the SOA or CAS constructed
empirically on the basis on prospective or retrospective mortality studies,
I have written on the subject and showed how to construct such a lifetable
by information theoretic methods which "is as close to the standard (or
given) mortality table as possible subject to the constraints that the so
constructed mortality table be consistent with published data on mortality
ratios of paraplegics (respectively quadraplegics) from published medical
literature". I shall be happy to send you the paper and references related
to this. One paper appeared in the Transactions of the Society of
Actuaries in 1991 and one in the Journal of Actuarial Practice. I can send
explicit references if so desired.
Pat Brockett
>I am looking for updated life expectancy tables for people with spinal cord
>injuries and people with brain injuries. These tables calculate an
>estimated life expectancy for males and females separately based on the age
>at the time of loss (0 - 70+). The spinal cord injury table also breaks
>down "complete" and "incomplete" paraplegics and quadriplegics.
>
>Could somebody point me in the right direction? This was posted to the
>SOA discussion group with no response. Thanks.
>
>- - Scott Henck
>
>
>
>
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