Background: Patients suffering from dementia are at risk of being treated differently by GPs from patients without it. Explanations for this could be stigmatisation, treatment with a palliative approach, and the result of the disease process.
Aim: To ascertain whether patients with dementia are treated differently, the index diseases of hypertension, diabetes, and hyperlipidaemia were used to measure care.
Design of study: Retrospective matched control study.
Setting: German general practice.
Method: Sixteen GP practices recruited all their patients with dementia and at least one of the index diseases. Patients without dementia but only the index diseases were matched for age, sex, index disease, and practice, resulting in 216 pairs of patients with and without dementia. From the files, blood pressure, blood sugar/glycated haemoglobin, cholesterol, the dates of measurement, the number of doctor-patient contacts, and the prescribed medication to treat the three conditions under scrutiny were documented. For analysis, t-tests and χ(2)-tests were used.
Results: No differences were found in treatment outcomes between the two patients groups, except one significant difference: one of the two documented systolic blood pressure values is lower in the dementia group. Furthermore, patients with dementia more often do not receive any medication or are treated with low-priced medications for hypertension (nearly significant).
Conclusion: GPs do not seem to treat patients with dementia differently. The use of lower-priced antihypertensive medication could be the only indication for some kind of difference in approach.