[Are the Danish Society of General Practitioners' clinical guidelines concerning "Identification and investigation of dementia and dementia-like conditions" useful as the basis of dementia investigation in general practice?].
BACKGROUND
During the last five years better possibilities have appeared for investigation and medical treatment of dementia. Society and the national health authorities have a growing demand for systematical identification of dementia. In 1999, DSAM published a clinical guideline for identifying dementia. The aim of the study was to test the usefulness of that guideline.


METHODS
A total of 22 out of 29 general practitioners (GPs) agreed to use the guidelines of the Danish Society of General Practitioners (DSAM) and the questionnaires from three consultations in order to systematically identify dementia. At the same time, the GPs gave their opinion about the usefulness of the guidelines.


RESULTS
A total of 22 GPs sent results from 69 patients. A group of 49 patients had been CT-scanned, 13 patients had been examined by neuropsychologists, and nine patients had started acetylcholinesterase inhibitor treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
Some GPs found it embarrassing to offer dementia identifying to their patients. Identifying dementia was complicated and time-consuming. Identifying dementia offered opportunities to look further into polypharmacy and cooperation with other health sectors. Necessary but not sufficient preconditions for starting identifying dementia in general practice will be fees, direct admission to CT-scanning and neuropsychologist, and possibly right to prescribe acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. The conclusion was that all GPs found the guidelines of DSAM useful for identifying dementia in general practice.
Errebo-Knudsen
Lisbeth
L
Lunds Universitet, Forskningsmetodisk grundkurs VMF 521, og Sundhedsforvaltningen i Nykøbing Falster, Kvalitetsenheden FUAP.
Dinesen
Ole
O
Jakobsen
Bo Gandil
BG
Kristensen
Kim Agner
KA
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors / Q000008:administration & dosage; D003704:Dementia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy; D003718:Denmark; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000191:economics; D012955:Societies, Medical; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014056:Tomography, X-Ray
D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors