Anti-Psychotic Drugs Linked to Deaths

By Philip Williams

Report author Professor Sube Banerjee says anti-psychotic drugs are over-prescribed by the National Health Service. A review of the use of anti-psychotic drugs for dementia patients in Britain has concluded they are largely unnecessary and sometimes deadly. The review ordered by government ministers concludes about 1,800 deaths are linked to the drugs.

The anti-psychotic drugs in question were originally developed to treat schizophrenia but over the past 30 years they have been increasingly used to subdue disturbed or violent dementia patients. According to the report commissioned by Britain's department of health, of the 180,000 patients given the drug, just 36,000 actually benefited.

For many others like Arthur Truman, it was a disaster. His health deteriorated rapidly after being prescribed powerful drugs known as the chemical cosh and his son Allan Truman feared the worst. "He became doubly incontinent within two weeks and was just a very unhappy person. I thought the end had come," Mr Truman said. Report author Professor Sube Banerjee says not only are the drugs over-prescribed by the National Health Service (NHS), they are often given for too long.

"The numbers benefiting from these drugs are relatively small so there's a major problem for the NHS to deal with in terms of quality and safety of healthcare for people with dementia," Professor Banerjee said. Responding to the report, the UK's Care Services Minister promised to appoint a national clinical director for dementia and to provide extra training to nursing home staff.

At one aged-care facility, staff have been retrained to give more one-on-one care. The old system of effectively knocking out difficult residents is a thing of the past. Barchester Care Homes manager Emma Bryer says the new model has had remarkable results. "Because they're not sedated they eat better, they drink better, which all helps with wellbeing. They enjoy joining in with things," Ms Bryer said.

The figure of 1,800 needless deaths each year is one the government cannot ignore and with the rate of dementia expected to rise over the next few years, it is an issue that is not going away.

Source: www.abc.net.au

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Previous Comments

Lisa commented on 23-Dec-2009 05:45 PM5 out of 5 stars
It's true, I am a registered nurse and specialize in dementia care on night shift.
I have found by sitting with our most anxious residents and continually reassuring them that they don't have to know what to do or when to do it and patiently reassure them there are staff to look after there every need, they resettle to sleep without medication and usually only get up twice a night for toileting rather that the 6 or 7 times they got out of bed prior to this strategy
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