Features of a forensic medical expert study to establish age

Abstract

Today, during war on the territory of our country, quite frequent situations arise when it is necessary to determine the age of a living person or a dead body. The article is devoted to the analysis of the possibilities of a forensic medical examination of a living person and the dead body to determine the age. In the course of the work, an analysis of the special literature on research methods in determining the age was carried out. These are the works of N.N. Tagaev (2003), K. A. Chaplinsky (2007), A. A. Babanin, V. D. Mishalov, A. V. Belovitsky, A. Yu. Skrebkova (2012), B. V. Mikhailichenko (2014), I. I. Smirnova (2021) and others. It has been established that this type of examination is assigned in cases where the documents in which the date of birth is marked (passport, birth certificate) are lost for any reason: war, sudden relocation from the place of residence, natural disaster. And in certain cases, such documents are deliberately hidden in order to avoid the criminal liability of adolescents, service in the armed forces, when identifying a living person. At the same time, it may be necessary to establish the age in civil cases: when replacing children, determining the age of marriage or the age of persons hired, involved in labor service, as well as in cases of establishing the age of majority, assigning and paying state pensions. The term "age" is understood as the period of development of a biological individual (human, animal, etc.), characterized by certain anatomical and physiological changes in the process of evolution and involution (reverse development of the physiological properties of the organism). The author presents various systems of periodization of biological age, which are based on the age-appropriate anatomical and physiological characteristics of the organism, and for childhood, they take into account adaptability to the environment. It has been determined that a forensic medical examination to establish age is carried out in three directions: age is determined by sight, it is determined using clinical and dental examinations, as well as laboratory research methods both in living persons and dead bodies. The features of age-related changes in the anthropometric parameters of the skin, the degree of development of secondary sexual characteristics, the number of teeth and their condition, and the ossification of the zones of epiphyseal bone growth are analyzed. It is highlighted that age-related changes in bones play an important role in determining the age of living persons, but they are even more important in determining the age of a deceased person. Thus, it should be noted that expert age determination refers to complex types of forensic medical examination and requires the use of a complex of clinical, laboratory and instrumental studies. It is carried out on a commission basis consisting of doctors of various specialties: a radiologist, an endocrinologist, a therapist, a psychoneurologist, a geneticist, a pediatrician and other necessary specialists, chaired by a forensic medical expert. As a result of an increase in the growth of the youth population, acceleration of its physical development and puberty (acceleration), ossification of the skeleton and due to this reduction in growth by one or two years in girls and boys at the present stage, for the use in the production of an expert study of tables for determining age, compiled in the last century, it is necessary to be critical. The totality of the number of research methods used determines the degree of authenticity of the conclusions of the forensic medical examination to determine the age.