A study published this month by Dartmouth College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock researchers found that spending for medical care at the end of life appears to be declining.

The study, which used Medicare data from the Dartmouth Atlas Project for people between the ages of 65 and 99, found that while end-of-life care costs increased between 2004 and 2009, they decreased from 2010 to 2014.

"We were surprised to find this kind of downward trend in per capita spending," said Dr. William Weeks, a professor at The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice and Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine.

Weeks, the lead author, said his surprise arose from the fact that previous studies have shown end-of-life care costs to be increasing.

The findings, published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, are significant because such a large portion of overall Medicare spending is involved with end-of-life care, Weeks said.