Does a hospital admission in old age denote the beginning of life with a compromised health-related quality of life? A longitudinal study of men and women aged 65 years and above participating in the Stockholm Public Health Cohort

The objective of this study was to analyse how hospitalisation after the age of 60 affected individuals' health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The main hypothesis was that a hospital admission in old age can be seen as a proxy of ill health and possibly as a health divider, separating life into a healthy and an unhealthy part. The extent to which this is true depends on which disease individuals face and how functional ability and HRQoL are affected