An update on the recognition of aging as a treatable medical condition in the ICD:
In the current International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) system, for the code MG2A, the original main designation “Old age” is now fully replaced with the new one: “Aging-associated decline in intrinsic capacity” in the “General Symptoms” category (the change is now also seen in the main ICD website)!
https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/835503193
The new designation is even better for designing measurable interventions into aging than the previous ill-defined “Old age”.
Moreover, there are about 14 “matching terms” for this MG2A Code, including “frailty of old age”, “old age atrophy”, “old age exhaustion”, “old age debility” and also “ageing” itself! All these terms allow the direct targeting of aging as a medical condition or as a set of general medical symptoms!
https://icd.who.int/ct11/icd11_mms/en/release (search “ageing”)
Moreover, there is a second code in the ICD-11, the XT9T extension code “Ageing-related” in the “Causality” or “Aetiology” category which also permits targeting aging as a medical indication, namely as an underlying cause or risk factor of diseases.
https://icd.who.int/browse11/l-m/en#/http://id.who.int/icd/entity/459275392
Thus, with both codes, Aging can be now directly targeted by biomedical interventions in accordance with the present International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11).
The contribution of longevity research advocates, of ILA in particular, to this inclusion of aging into the ICD-11 as a treatable medical condition has been crucial.
Now the task is in the hands of medical researchers and practitioners to leverage those ICD codes to design and test interventions directly into aging, including the development of evaluation criteria for the efficacy and safety of such interventions, for the benefit of older persons, prevention of aging-related diseases and extension of healthy longevity!
See our brief article, explaining the principal topics about the inclusion of Aging in the ICD-11:
Ilia Stambler, Aleksey Alekseev, Yuri Matveyev, Daria Khaltourina. Advanced pathological ageing should be represented in the ICD. The Lancet Healthy Longevity, 3(1), E11, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-7568(21)00305-6
Also recently, additional articles on the subject were published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhl/article/PIIS2666-7568(22)00154-4/fulltext
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhl/article/PIIS2666-7568(22)00102-7/fulltext