Overprescribed? Anti-psychotic drugs used too commonly on dementia patients, some say

[guest]

Lalita Figueredo’s husband, Allan, has been taking anti-psychotic drugs for a decade. But he’s not psychotic. The drugs were prescribed to control his behaviour after his diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s disease in 2003. That sort of “off-label” use of antipsychotics is common. In the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), which includes Ottawa and much of Eastern Ontario, 31.7 per cent of the region’s 7,500 long-term care home residents are on antipsychotics with no diagnosis of psychosis. The ratio is similar elsewhere in Canada.

查看原文...