General Practitioners are usually the first medical point of contact for elderly people, but some doctors may fail to diagnose alcohol misuse in a population where there are other urgent medical matters and some believe that it may be better for the individual to continue in their established pattern of drinking as altering it could be harmful. Elderly patients may show reluctance at disclosing their alcohol intake and relatives may wish to hide the evidence of the misuse of alcohol and deny the existence of the problem. Appropriate screening measures are necessary in order to identify alcohol or other substance misuse among the elderly - and these.
