Tassie lead on early signs

AUSTRALIANS may soon be diagnosed with dementia much earlier, thanks to a new Tasmanian training program for general practitioners.

The online training videos, which enable GPs to recognise dementia when patients exhibit early symptoms, were developed by General Practice Training Tasmania with the help of a $670,000 Federal Government grant.

Federal Aged Care Minister Ken Wyatt, who launched the program’s national rollout in Hobart yesterday, said given dementia was increasingly common among Australia’s ageing population the program addressed an urgent need to “detect dementia earlier and manage it better”.

Currently 425,000 Australians live with the illness.

Rohan Kerr, former GPTT education director, said conventional dementia diagnoses were time-consuming as they involved referring patients to specialists.

“Until that diagnosis is made it can delay management,” Dr Kerr said.

GPTT chief executive Allyson Warrington said the training improved GPs’ ability to detect the early symptoms of dementia

“We see patients come through and sometimes the signs just don’t click with us,’’ Ms Warrington said.

Mr Kerr said early-onset dementia often revealed itself to GPs when patients repeatedly forgot to attend appointments or kept returning to pick up the same prescription.

“Or it could be family members, concerned about safety in the house, out-of-date food or keys in the microwave,’’ he said.

Mr Wyatt said Dementia Australia estimated that 250 people across the nation were joining the population with dementia each day.

“That number will increase to 318 people per day by 2025 and more than 650 people by 2056,” he said.

“Dementia is recognised as the second leading cause of death of Australians, contributing to 5.4 per cent of all deaths in males and 10.6 per cent of all deaths in females each year.”

Mr Wyatt said that while general dementia literacy among health professionals was alarmingly low, evaluation of the Tasmanian program had already demonstrated promising changes in doctors’ clinical behaviour thanks to improved awareness, knowledge and confidence in dementia care.

“This augurs well for the potential national rollout of this online resource,” he said.