Overuse of Antipsychotics in the Nursing Homes

Beth Janicek

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Antipsychotic drugs are over prescribed to all the elderly including those in the nursing homes. Medicaid sent out a mandate last year to nursing home inspectors to crack down on the over prescribing of the antipsychotic drugs.

Of the state's 398 nursing homes, 38 percent were cited last year for using such medications inappropriately, up from 27 percent in 2006.

The drugs are often precribed whether the resident is pyschotic or not. They are used to quiet the disruptive nursing home resident rather than add more staff to care for the residents. The drugs may help some patients but for others increase the risk of falling and increase the risk of confusion.

Unless the resident is combative because of a mental illness such as paranoia, there's almost always a better way to control disruptive behavior in someone with dementia than with drugs, said John Brose, a Minneapolis psychologist who consults at more than 100 nursing homes, including Hopkins.