Antipsychotic Drugs For Alzheimer’s Double Death Risk
Alzheimer’s patients who are prescribed antipsychotic drugs face a higher risk of death than similar patients not given these medications do, British researchers report.
While the short-term use of antipsychotics has been found to benefit Alzheimer’s patients, studies have found that prolonged use can have serious side effects, including Parkinson-like symptoms, sedation, chest infections, decline in brain function, stroke and death.
Anti psychotic drugs
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and causes symptoms including aggression, delusions and hallucinations. Previous studies have shown anti-psychotic drugs, which can help control the aggression and hallucinations for a few months raise the risk of death in older patients with dementia. There are other side effects, including respiratory problems and stroke.
Alzheimer’s is an incurable brain disease that worsens over time and is the most common form of dementia, affecting 26 million people globally, according to the Alzheimer’s association.
Antipsychotic drugs have increasingly been used to treat the personality changes and aggression often associated with the disease, but the new findings suggest for many they may not be worth the risk.
The study was led by Clive Ballard and colleagues from the Wolfson Center for Age-Related Diseases at King’s College London.
They focused on 165 patients between the ages of 67 and 100 for a period of 3-years.
All of the patient suffered from either moderate or severe Alzheimer’s disease when the study began.
They had half of those in the study take an antipsychotic drug such as Risperdal or Stelazine, and the other half take a placebo.
These types of drugs are usually given to Alzheimer’s patients to help control their aggression.
Experts aren’t sure how the anti-psychotics increase patients’ risk of dying. But they think the drugs could be damaging to the brain and their sedative effects make patients less able to exercise and more susceptible to deadly infections.
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