Image by Jonny Gios on Unsplash.
Suppose you are admitted to the hospital one week before your eightieth birthday. Technically, you are 79. And tthat’s the age that’s listed for you.
But is 79 really that different from 80, especially in those last few weeks and months?
What about 49 vs. 50? Or even 48 vs. 50?
The book Randon Acts of Medicin explains this phenomenon as left digit bias. The first author, Dr. Anupam Jena, appears in a video on YouTube.
It’s not just about age at the upper limits. The book points out that doctors hesitate to prescribe opioids to someone who’s 17 years old and 51 weeks. That extra week makes a big difference.
This is the same bias we see in marketing when we get goods at 14.99 instead of $15. As the authors explain, people look at the left digit of a number far more than the right. You wouldn’t think it happens in health care, but it does.
In medicine, you get treated differently–and sometimes get different treatments–depending on your age.
In a Forbes article, a radiologist pointed out that his training taught him to think in decades: 20-29, 30-39, 40-40 and so on.He admits, “tt would be completely plausible for a radiologist to think slightly differently about an MRI scan on a tumor patient who was 39 years and 51 weeks old vs. a patient who was 40 years and 1 week old.”
Dr. Jena thinks the only answer is making people aware.
You might try asking your doctor: “If I were a year older or a year younger, would your recommendations be different?” If you’ve just had a birthday, or your next birthday is coming up soon, this question could be especially powerful.
After all, there’s not much difference between a 79-year-old and an 80-year-old.
There is, however, a potentially huge difference between patients of the same age, particularly as people get older. One 80 year old might be running marathons; another might be confined to a wheelchair in a “frail” condition.
So maybe a better question would be, “If I told you I ran a marathon last week, would your answer be different?”
It would be even better if the 80-year-old really did run a marathon or did something similar. This is one of those situations where medical people could use a fresh perspective every so often.
