Saturday, June 4, 2011

Are senior citizens being overmedicated? – The Chart - CNN.com Blogs

Strong, antipsychotic drugs are being prescribed more often to senior citizens in U.S. nursing homes, setting off a debate about whether it's the right treatment for the elderly suffering from dementia.

Daniel Levinson, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, believes this increase - detailed in a recent study by his office - is a cause for alarm.  "The report found that too often, elderly residents are prescribed antipsychotic drugs in ways that violate government standards for unnecessary drug use," he wrote in a commentary for CNN.com.

Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat disagrees, saying the study Levinson cites is a "blizzard of statistics" that doesn't tell the entire story.  "When these drugs are successful, they soothe the inner turmoil that makes life intolerable for these patients, improving their quality of life dramatically," Carlat wrote in his commentary for CNN.com.

Click on the "Via" link for the full article.

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