Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Nursing Homes Overuse Antipsychotics

In 2006, a year after the FDA issued mortality warnings about prescribing antipsychotic drugs for the elderly, nearly 30% of nursing home residents received the medication -- despite the fact that a third of them had no indication for the drugs, a study revealed…..

This elevated risk associated with facility-level prescribing was seen for patients with dementia but no psychosis (RR 1.40, 95% CI 1.23 to 1.59), and in residents with neither psychosis nor dementia (RR 1.54, 95% CI 1.24 to 1.91), the researchers reported in the Jan. 11 Archives of Internal Medicine.

An unrelated study, also released today, indicated that office-based physicians were in fact cutting back on prescription of antipsychotics for dementia as a result of FDA warnings……

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/Depression/17892

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