Federal officials say nearly 2,500 Massachusetts nursing home residents were given powerful antipsychotic drugs last year that were not intended or recommended for their medical condition.
Three quarters of nurses have seen people with dementia in general wards in hospital prescribed antipsychotic drugs that are known to double the risk of death and triple the risk of a stroke in these patients, research has shown.
In Illinois, advocates are calling for restrictions on Medicaid’s reimbursement for antipsychotic drugs and for enforcement of rules requiring informed patient consent, among other measures.
According to a new report commissioned by the British government, there are an estimated 180,000 elderly people with dementia in the United Kingdom currently being treated with antipsychotic drugs such as Seroquel, Zyprexa, Risperdal and Abilify. The report found that these drugs could be responsible for as many as 1,800 deaths and 1,620 strokes each year among the elderly with dementia in the United Kingdom.
According to a review ordered by the UK’s Department of Health, excessive use of the medication causes an estimated 1,800 deaths and almost as many strokes among older people every year. As many as many as 144,000 people suffering from dementia are being given anti-psychotic drugs unnecessarily.