Elder Law

FDA Says to Decrease Antipsychotic Drugs in Elderly Patients

By Levin & Perconti

A new study has found that newly admitted nursing home patients are more likely to be prescribed antipsychotics if the nursing home has a high prescribing rate for antipsychotics. The FDA has recently advised that nursing homes should decrease their use of atypical antipsychotic in elderly dementia patients. More than 29 percent of residents received at least one antipsychotic medication, even though 32 percent of them had no clinical indication for the medication. It is important that elderly people are not overly medicated by antipsychotic medication. Nursing homes cannot use these medications in order to chemically restrain their patients. To learn more about the nursing home studies, please click the link.

Full post as published by Illinois Nursing Home Abuse Blog on January 29, 2010 (boomark / email).