|
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
| SEARCH | SUBSCRIBE | ||
|
 |
Study:
Elderly's Mental Decline Often Missed Reuters, August 18, 2003Chicago
- Doctors accustomed to diagnosing physical ailments too often miss
symptoms of mental decline that may be early signs of dementia in the
elderly, researchers said on Monday. "As
a result, these patients do not have the benefits of early medical
treatment or the opportunity to make legal and financial decisions while
they are still able," psychiatrist Sanford Finkel of the University
of Chicago Medical School told the Congress of the International
Psychogeriatric Association. His
study of 2,150 people in Illinois aged 65 or older, under way since 2000,
found as many as 28 percent of participants showed symptoms of cognitive
impairment. Yet their physicians noted the symptoms in the medical records
of only 6 percent of patients and only 2 percent were prescribed drugs. In
addition, doctors diagnosed only one-quarter of the 25 percent of
participants with symptoms of depression. "These
statistics represent a major public health problem and have serious
implications for our aging population," Finkel said. "Primary
care physicians are very good at diagnosing the physical disorders
associated with aging, but they often have not been trained to recognize
early symptoms or don't have the time to evaluate patients with the mental
disorders that afflict a large proportion of elderly people," he
said. Doctors
should look for changes in patients' routines such as a lack of interest
in shopping, housework or socializing; changes in sleep patterns; a lack
of energy; sudden, unexplained weight loss; vague or tangential answers to
questions; and an inability to follow instructions, such as failing to
refill prescriptions. Early
diagnosis opens the way to treatment with drugs that can slow or reverse
memory problems, and head off family disagreements over drafting or
revising a patient's will, Finkel said. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
|
