Agitated dementia patients endangered by anti-psychotic drugs
Dementia patients, who become increasingly agitated and delusional as the condition progresses, are often prescribed anti-psychotic drugs as a way to calm them, but a new Canadian study says those patients are up to three times more likely to suffer serious adverse effects from the drugs, including death.
As a result, the Toronto based research team is urging more caution in prescribing these drugs, for which prescriptions are quite common for dementia and Alzheimers patients.
The research team, from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), also said its findings once again prove the importance of continuing to monitor drug performance and impact after drugs enter the market.
This is especially important, because drug tests typically do not use the elderly in their clinical evaluations, although they may be the population widely using a drug.
The study findings left little doubt about the drugs’ impact. Community dwelling dementia patients using drugs that had been on the market for some time, were 3.8 times more likely to experience serious events, including death, while those using drugs that entered the market more recently, were 3.2 times more likely to suffer such effects.
The risk was placed at 2.4 times more likely for those residing in nursing homes.
