Researchers from the UK and New Zealand said that "preventive treatments in elderly people may simply change the cause of death rather than prolonging life" in the article "Preventive health care in elderly people needs rethinking" in BMJ Online First.
As an example, they said that elderly patients will not necessarily reduce their risk of death caused by cardiovascular disease if they are given statins, their cause of death will most likely be "substituted" for cancer. Doctors are given financial incentives to persuading patients to accept such preventive treatments that are expensive and can be harmful to them.
The authors called for a more sophisticated model to assess preventive treatments in the elderly and concluded that cash may be better spent in relieving suffering through cataract, joint replacement operations and caring for people with dementia.
No comments:
Post a Comment