Elderly's mental decline often missed
[18 August 2003 - Reuters Health Information] 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.