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Understanding how patients decline in health before they die has powerful implications for prognosis and could guide counseling for patients and families. Beginning in 1998, investigators observed 754 initially nondisabled, community-dwelling elders (age, ≥70) in Connecticut to examine the connection between hospital admissions in the last 12 months of life and trajectories of disability. Disability was defined by the number of activities of daily living that participants were able to manage by themselves: dressing, bathing, walking, and transferring. Mild disability was defined as dependence on others in one or two activities, whereas severe disability was dependence in three or four activities. They then classified participants' health in…