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Elderly's
Mental Decline Often Missed
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.
"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.
Reference
Source 89
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