Use of the term "old age' in notifying deaths of residents in Oxfordshire nursing homes between 1984 and 1994 was matched with recorded age. 2264 records covering 44 registered nursing homes were looked at. The oldest person referred to as dying from old age was 106, the youngest 69 years. The most general starting point for a diagnosis of old age was 77 though the years from the mid-eighties through the early nineties were taken by the majority of notifiers as fitting this description.