If there are any of you out there with loved ones in nursing homes, or assisted care, you might want to pay close attention to how they are treating, and medicating, your family. Obviously, it's not an all-or-nothing situation, as elderly patients who have suffered with psychological diseases, like schizophrenia, all their life and have needed medication most of their lives can't just stop taking medication just because they've gotten older; but, it's just like with kids - you don't just medicate for the sake of keeping the person "under control".
Nursing homes are unnecessarily administering powerful antipsychotic drugs to many elderly residents, including residents with dementia, according to a new report by the Health and Human Services inspector general.
The Food and Drug Administration in 2005 mandated that drug makers issue warning labels on atypical antipsychotics, noting that the drugs—which are generally FDA-approved for treating schizophrenia and bipolar disorder—increase the risk of death for elderly patients with dementia. Yet when the government examined 1.4 million Medicare claims from 2007 for atypical antipsychotics for elderly nursing home residents, the government found that 88 percent of the time, the drugs were prescribed to individuals diagnosed with dementia.
The report itself does not specifically examine ties between doctors, pharmacies, and nursing homes, but in a statement accompanying the report,
http://oig.hhs.gov/testimony/levinson_051011.asp
Levinson faulted drug companies for aggressively—and illegally—marketing these products to doctors for treatment of dementia and other off-label uses. (It's not illegal for doctors to prescribe drugs for off-label uses, but it is for drug companies to promote them as such.)
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
You know there are so many people in nursing homes that should not be. I hope my kids don't dump me, if I make it that long. I doubt I will because I hate feeling old.
Even happens in hospitals. My dad was in the ICU and they had him on way too many medications because the company was making money on them! He wasn't allowed to use his own prescriptions. Just stupidity, and they also like compliant patients so they tried to keep him as doped up as possible. Possibly why so many old age homes over medicate too.
I would advise people who are concerned about this to have the patient's GP looks at what is being prescribed.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
