Age Assessment in Forensic Cases: Anthropological, Odontological and Biochemical Methods for Age Estimation in the Dead

¹Fundació Universitat de Girona: Innovació i Formació, Universitat de Girona, Spain

²Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and International Forensic Research Institute. Florida International University.

Corresponding Author: Adserias-Garriga, Fundació Universitat de Girona: Innovació i Formació, Universitat de Girona, Spain, Tel: (+34) 649 664 437; Email: [email protected]

Received Date:  11 Sep 2017  
Accepted Date:  03 Jan 2018  
Published Date: 08 Jan 2018

Copyright © 2018 Adserias-Garriga J

Citation: Adserias-Garriga J and Zapico SC. (2018). Age Assessment in Forensic Cases: Anthropological, Odontological and Biochemical Methods for Age Estimation in the Dead. Mathews J Foren. 1(1): 001.

ABSTRACT

One of the main goals of forensic science is determining the age of an individual to perform the biological profile. This is important in criminal cases and mass disaster scenarios, where the skeletons are often incomplete, which makes difficult their identification. The knowledge and application of anthropological methods and new biochemical approaches is essential to correct age determination, leading to the identification of an individual. Forensic anthropology and odontology methods estimate age through the macroscopic changes in bones and teeth due to growth and development in subadult individuals, and degenerative changes in adults. When growth has ceased, age estimation in adults is basically based on the degenerative changes of bone and teeth, and is generally less precise than in subadults. Due to the accuracy of the age estimate decreases as the age of the individual increases, other methods have been developed for estimating the age of the adult individual based on changes at the biochemical level due to the physiological process of aging. Biochemical methods are accurate, however, they have some limitations, so its use in combination with anthropological methods can be very useful for accurately estimating age.

KEYWORDS

Age Estimation; Biological Profile; Hman Identification.