Physicians should inquire about guns in the homes of geriatric patients who may be at a higher risk for a gun-related fatality — particularly suicide — because of dementia, delusions, memory problems and depression, according to an article by a Florida State University health care attorney published online in the Annals of Internal Medicine. UTMB’s Dr. Howard Brody said that the article raises a helpful red flag about the problem of impaired geriatric patients with access to guns. "Physicians should pay more attention to this than they have in the past," said Brody. However, routinely hot-lining families for not separating impaired seniors from their guns would be an extreme and disproportionate measure, he added. "[The author] has not given us enough evidence to say this should be a routine precaution," said Brody.