Baby Boomers and GPs

March 2018

Professor Ann Roche was invited by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RACGP) to contribute an article to the College’s monthly news magazine, Good Practice which is delivered to approximately 33,000 general practitioners each month.

The article, entitled One more revolution: Older patients continue to challenge conventions, even as they enter their golden years was published in December 2017.

Professor Roche cited the latest findings from the 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey and noted that the upward trend of older age groups using more alcohol and other drugs was a new and unusual development.

Professor Roche said “We’ve got one in four people in the 50-59 age group drinking at what we’d define as a risky level at least once a month. And then amongst the 60-year-olds it’s one in five, so that’s a large-ish number. From a primary healthcare, GP perspective, this is a substantial proportion of the patient population they would be seeing”.

The article also provides guidance to general practitioners on strategies for identifying and responding to AOD use problems among older people.

At the end of the article, Professor Roche challenges the misconception that you can’t teach old people new tricks and that it’s too late to change by stating “The evidence is very clear that if they have a substantial AOD problem, older people generally do well in response to both early intervention and advice, but also in treatment programs”.

https://www.racgp.org.au/publications/goodpractice/201712/older-patients/