Australian geriatrician Professor Peter Gonski, discusses the importance of accurate diagnosis of mental illness in older people:

Older Australians are being inaccurately diagnosed and treated for dementia because some medical and aged care staff are commonly confusing the symptoms of the disease with the tell-tale signs of depression, delirium and schizophrenia.

Director and senior staff specialist geriatrician for Southcare at Sutherland Hospital, Associate Professor Peter Gonski, believes this misdiagnosis in the older population is a major issue that is currently not being addressed.

“First of all people are not recognising the problem,” Associate Professor Gonski said.

“A lot of people think that delirium equals dementia.…Most older people in a hospital setting will have delirium not dementia.

“There are people who have been diagnosed with dementia that is clearly not dementia.”

This can result in the wrong treatment, mismatched medication and unnecessary side effects, not to mention an increased rate of falls, sedation, pneumonia and subsequently death.

The problem, according to Associate Professor Gonski, is not only limited to diagnosis- it also impacts upon disease management and in turn the older person’s quality of life.

“I think that people think that they’ve done what they can and they think there is nothing else that can be done but I think that’s wrong,” he said.

“If you go down the wrong track you don’t see reversibility and if you don’t see reversibility, people just deteriorate.

“Reversibility is the crux of aged care medicine. If you find it you will give that person a good quality of life and that is what we are trying to do.”

Education, he said, is essentially the bottom line, as well as a good networking system so that older people can be referred on to a medical professional who has the skills and expertise required to correctly diagnose the specific mental health condition.

“Have a very high understanding of the different causes of confusion and agitation in the elderly, and of the behavioural aspects.

"Don’t put it all down to dementia. A lot of it is dementia but not all of it is dementia.”

Source: Australian Ageing Agenda