Geriatrician calls out Western medicine for mistreating elderly people
Dr Peter Lipski is fed up with the way our health care system is treating older Australians and has lifted the lid on misdiagnosis, malnutrition and other harmful medical myths.
Central Coast
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Older people in Australia are denied proper medical care due to symptoms being blamed on old age, according to a leading Australian geriatrician.
The elderly should be eating as much food as a State of Origin front rower, according to Peter Lipski, who says malnutrition in elderly people is the “biggest issue facing western world medicine”, with people believing that as you get older you eat less and less.
“It’s a myth, you actually need to eat more … a lot more,” he said.
“People bring their elderly parents in and say, ‘mum’s losing weight and not eating, but it’s just old age’.
“The body consumes almost double the amount of protein and energy compared to a young person to prevent muscle breakdown.
“Malnutrition causes falls, osteoporosis is a disease of malnutrition. If this was managed properly, it could be prevented.”
Dr Lipski is on a mission to dispel myths and stereotypes surrounding the health and medical care of elderly people.
He has released a book titled Your Elderly Parents Failing Health — Is it Ageing or a Treatable Condition? and is calling on politicians, doctors, nurses, sons and daughters to take notice.
Dr Lipski, who practices from Brisbane Water Private Hospital on the Central Coast, was inspired to write the book after seeing the desperation of relatives to help their parents with falling health.
He wanted to spread the message that ageing does not cause declining health and it is never too late to treat an older person.
“People blame normal age or chronic age for every symptom,” he said.
“As we get older we are more at risk of disease but it doesn’t mean we are going to get sick as we get older.
“Good, holistic — bread and butter style — medicine results in spectacular improvements in the general health of older people.”
He said older people in countries such as Australia are denied proper medical care due to symptoms being blamed on old age.
“The big implication is they end up in the public hospital emergency because the failure of the medical system to diagnose them.”
Dr Lipski said if the health system moved from a system that relied on specialists to doctors practising more holistic medicine the result in cost savings would be enormous.
“I assert that the health budget could be reduced massively by going back to general medicine,” he said.
“We are spending more money on new hospitals when we should be providing more community care.”
His book also explores adverse drug reactions in the elderly as a result of poor prescribing knowledge, along with blood pressure being taken incorrectly in our hospitals.
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