How check with CF whether data already exists in DB table

Hi all

I'm building a little application in CF with a MS Access DB. I've got a table where I store persons, first name, last name, date of birth and some more. I've started saving data and now I get sometimes troubles because I cannot remember whether I already stored a certain person or not. Actually I wanted to build a little check in CF but I do not understand the basic of such a check. What I did so far: Before I save the data to the table I run a lttle query which checks for the first name and the last name (see below). If I get a result I through the request back telling that this person already exists. So far it's ok, but if I want to edit an existing data set I cannot save it to the database because it is alredy there. Is my problem understandable?

Here my code on how I would like to check whether the data already exists:

<!-- Here I access the database and send the three criteria to check for -->

<cfmodule template="../common/patient.cfm"

     action = "checkpatient"
     patient_name = "#patient_name#"
     patient_fname = "#patient_fname#"
     patient_dob = "#cf_patient_dob#"

     output = "get_CheckPatient">

<cfif get_CheckPatient.recordcount GT 0>
  <cfset error_message = "The data you try to save exist already. Would you like to save it anyway?">
  <cfinclude template="patient_edit.cfm">
  <cfexit>
</cfif>

As you can see I would like even to let the user choose whether he wants to save the data - it might be that there are more than one person having the same name and date of birth.

Thank you very much for your help!