The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published an article entitled “Prescription Abuse Seen in U.S. Nursing Homes: Powerful Antipsychotics Used to Subdue Elderly; Huge Medicaid Expense.” The article exposes the widespread of antipsychotics in nursing homes in order to sedate and control the elderly. Nearly 30% of the nursing-home population is receiving antipsychotics. WSJ also describes how the FDA has issued a black box warning that state antipsychotics can increase the risk of death in older patients with “dementia.” Earlier this year, the federal Agency for Health Care Research and Quality stated that the drugs can trigger strokes, induce body tremors, fuel weight gain and affect an elderly person's gait, increasing their chances of falling. Dr. Jeffrey Nichols, from New York's Cabrini Eldercare Consortium [association], says the use of such drugs to care for agitated dementia patients is “like hitting a TV on the side.” “You walk into facilities where you see residents slumped over in their wheelchairs, their heads are hanging, and they’re out of it, and that is unacceptable,” Christie Teigland, from the New York Association of Homes and Services for the Aging. “These drugs are being given way too much to this frail elderly population,” she says. The reason given for the widespread drug use is money—federal insurance programs reimburse readily prescribing the drugs.
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