Constipation and Nursing Home Violence
Constipation and nursing home violence
Depression, delusions, hallucinations and even constipation are associated with dangerous and violent behaviour among nursing home residents with dementia.
About 88,000 (6.8%) of US nursing home residents hit, shove, scratch or sexually abuse others every week, according to a report in the June 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Previous studies have linked psychological conditions to aggression, but this study was one of the first to examine the effects of constipation. It was studied because constipation is common, modifiable and recognised by clinicians to be a cause of many non-specific symptoms.
It is not clear whether physical aggression may be related to factors that predispose to constipation (eg anticholinergic medications such as tricyclic antidepressants), the symptoms associated with constipation, or interventions such as suppositories that may elicit a defensive action by some residents.
Depression, delusions and hallucinations, may be amenable to intervention and, in addition to reducing the morbidity associated with these entities themselves, effective treatment may reduce the risk of violence in nursing homes.
