Utilizing Research to Determine Life Expectancy: Applications for Life Care Planning

Estimating life expectancy (LE) is an essential component to determining lifetime needs after disability and to project lifetime costs. Our objective was to define LE and describe the types of research utilized in estimating LE, focusing on spinal cord injury as an example. LE is a population parameter, whereas the life care plan is an individualized plan. This makes it essential that research used as the foundation of the LE be matched to key characteristics of the individual to insure the estimate reflects the appropriate population. LE estimates must be adjusted to account for additional mortality related to disability. Behavioral, economic, and health factors also affect LE, with economic factors being particularly important since life care plans are typically developed within the context of litigation (a process of allocating economic resources). Since economics are strongly related to risk of mortality, it is essential to account for favorable economics when estimating LE for a life care plan to produce accurate estimates not biased by the excess mortality observed among those in the population with highly limited economic resources. Failure to account for favorable economics and other selective factors for individuals for whom the life care plan is developed may lead to inaccurate estimations of LE, as the population upon which the LE estimate is derived may be different than that of the individual.