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 Health & Beauty | May 2008 
Antipsychotic Drugs Triple Risk of Death for Dementia Patients
 Elizabeth Lopatto - Bloomberg
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| | Antipsychotic drugs, often prescribed as a short-term treatment for dementia's confusion and rages, have been associated with falls, hip fractures, strokes and death in other scientific studies. | | |
People with dementia more than tripled their risk of death or hospitalization within a month of taking antipsychotic drugs to silence their agitation, according to a study.
Those taking a class of antipsychotic drugs including generics haloperidol and loxapine were 3.8 times more likely to be hospitalized or die, according to research published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine. People taking newer medicines including Eli Lilly & Co.'s Zyprexa and Johnson & Johnson's Risperdal had 3.2 times more risk of complications or death.
Antipsychotic drugs, often prescribed as a short-term treatment for dementia's confusion and rages, have been associated with falls, hip fractures, strokes and death in other scientific studies. The new research collects the potential for death and all other serious risks together for the first time.
"You have to think very carefully before you start these therapies," said lead author Paula Rochon, a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto. "Is the risk worth the potential benefit? For many patients, there are probably other approaches you could take that are equally effective and much safer."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2005 required makers of all five of the newer antipsychotic drugs to include a "black box" warning of death risk in elderly dementia patients.
Even Worse?
The risk to people taking the drugs is probably even higher than the study of 41,000 dementia patients aged 66 and older, the authors said. The study followed participants for 30 days and didn't include people with severe injuries who weren't hospitalized.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, according to the National Institutes of Health. Other causes include stroke and brain tumors. Previous research has shown that Alzheimer's patients who are given antipsychotics die six months earlier than patients who don't take the drugs.
About 17 percent of dementia patients in nursing homes are prescribed an antipsychotic drug within 100 days of their admission, the study said. Nursing home patients taking the medications were twice as likely to die or be hospitalized as those not taking the medicine, the study said.
"These therapies can be useful," Rochon said. "The problem is when they're used outside of their indication."
To contact the reporter on this story: Elizabeth Lopatto in New York at elopatto(at)bloomberg.net. |
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