GPs are medicalising healthy elderly people, professor warns

March 5, 2009

http://snipurl.com/d3zd5 [Telegraph, UK]GPs are medicalising healthy elderly people, professor warnsElderly people are being turned into patients by GPs blindly following guidelines to hand out pills for high blood pressure and cholesterol, a professor has said. by Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Last Updated: 3:59PM GMT 03 Mar 2009 The ‘paternalistic society’ and medicine by ‘tick box’ has overtaken personal advice, Michael Oliver, emeritus professor of cardiology at Edinburgh University wrote in the British Medical Journal online.He said many of the drugs including those for high blood pressure and statins for raised cholesterol have side effects which many elderly people find debilitating.Prof Oilver wrote: “Nowadays few elderly people are allowed to enjoy being healthy. A bureaucratic demand for documentation can lead to overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and unnecessary anxiety. Preventive action may be irrelevant and even harmful in elderly people. More than 30 years ago, in his book Medical Nemesis, Ivan Illich called this trend “the medicalisation of health.”He said the GP incentives to diagnose and treat patients, known as the Quality and Outcomes Framework, which means a proportion of the practice income is dependent upon hitting target, has meant many elderly people who considered themselves healthy are being put on pills.Prof Oliver said: “Many older people, often retired, are summoned by their general practitioner for an annual health check. They may feel reasonably well, but the NHS does not always permit such euphoria. They may be told that they have hypertension or diabetes or high cholesterol concentrations; that they are obese; that they take too little exercise, eat unhealthily, and drink too much.”He warned that the practice of medicalising the elderly can be harmful and many of the guidelines for treating high blood pressure and cholesterol are based on much younger people or on evidence that the drugs reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke, but only by a small amount.He added: “Are those people who have now been turned into patients warned sufficiently about side effects? Are minor side effects, which can be debilitating in this age group, reported to health authorities? More importantly, are doctors willing to discontinue treatment and permit these patients to return to their previously unencumbered and reasonably fit lives?”David Stout, director of the Primary Care Trust Network at the NHS Confederation, said: “It is important to have procedures in place to ensure a high standard of healthcare for all patients, irrespective of their age. However there is no such thing as ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to healthcare. All GPs treat elderly patients on an individual basis and this should remain the case. Guidelines are exactly that and should not be taken as a binding instruction.”

=====In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

March 5, 2009

How else can they reduce the Aged Pension costs?

-

Viviane Lerner

HEALTH & HEALING

Cc: NATURAL NEWS ; PROGRESSIVE REVIEW ; ALTERNET ; RADTIMES ; OPED NEWS

Thursday, March 05, 2009 11:51 AM

GPs are medicalising healthy elderly people, professor warns

http://snipurl.com/d3zd5 [Telegraph, UK]

GPs are medicalising healthy elderly people, professor warns

Elderly people are being turned into patients by GPs blindly following guidelines to hand out pills for high blood pressure and cholesterol, a professor has said.

by Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor Last Updated: 3:59PM GMT 03 Mar 2009

The ‘paternalistic society’ and medicine by ‘tick box’ has overtaken personal advice, Michael Oliver, emeritus professor of cardiology at Edinburgh University wrote in the British Medical Journal online.

He said many of the drugs including those for high blood pressure and statins for raised cholesterol have side effects which many elderly people find debilitating.

Prof Oilver wrote: “Nowadays few elderly people are allowed to enjoy being healthy. A bureaucratic demand for documentation can lead to overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and unnecessary anxiety. Preventive action may be irrelevant and even harmful in elderly people. More than 30 years ago, in his book Medical Nemesis, Ivan Illich called this trend “the medicalisation of health.”

He said the GP incentives to diagnose and treat patients, known as the Quality and Outcomes Framework, which means a proportion of the practice income is dependent upon hitting target, has meant many elderly people who considered themselves healthy are being put on pills.

Prof Oliver said: “Many older people, often retired, are summoned by their general practitioner for an annual health check. They may feel reasonably well, but the NHS does not always permit such euphoria. They may be told that they have hypertension or diabetes or high cholesterol concentrations; that they are obese; that they take too little exercise, eat unhealthily, and drink too much.”

He warned that the practice of medicalising the elderly can be harmful and many of the guidelines for treating high blood pressure and cholesterol are based on much younger people or on evidence that the drugs reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke, but only by a small amount.

He added: “Are those people who have now been turned into patients warned sufficiently about side effects? Are minor side effects, which can be debilitating in this age group, reported to health authorities? More importantly, are doctors willing to discontinue treatment and permit these patients to return to their previously unencumbered and reasonably fit lives?”

David Stout, director of the Primary Care Trust Network at the NHS Confederation, said: “It is important to have procedures in place to ensure a high standard of healthcare for all patients, irrespective of their age. However there is no such thing as ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to healthcare. All GPs treat elderly patients on an individual basis and this should remain the case. Guidelines are exactly that and should not be taken as a binding instruction.”

=====

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.11.7/1983 - Release 03/04/09 07:41:00