•The presence of multiple comorbidities in the elderly make the determination of the underlying cause of death challenging. 

•Where multiple comorbidities exist, choose the single sequence of events that is in your best medical opinion the sequence that led to death, to report in part 1. 

•Conditions that do not fit into the causal sequence can be reported in Part 2. 

•Terms such as “old age”, senility or “advanced age” are uninformative and should not be reported. Where possible enter a specific medical diagnosis. 

•Deaths due to falls and other injury related conditions in the elderly - even if they are as a result of natural causes such as blindness - are not natural causes and should be reported to forensic pathology services.