I'd rather die from stroke...

[BabyPsychDoc]

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Members do not see this ad.

But evidently I am in the minority

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7586627.stm

I love media...

 

[Faebinder]

I guess they rather have psychotic patients at large.

 

[Solideliquid]

I loved this part-- So what is this new strategy? Are they building a bunch of new nursing homes complete with 100% padded walls and new SWAT armored suits for the staff?

"Sorry Mr Doe, we aren't going to be prescribing your father (with dementia) anti-psychotic drugs, you are just doing to have to deal with him punching out your wife."



'Last resort'

Neil Hunt, from the Alzheimer's Society, said that doctors now needed to heed these warnings.

"The over-prescription of antipsychotics is a serious breach of human rights, these drugs should only be a last resort.

"The forthcoming National Dementia Strategy is a crucial opportunity to stop this dangerous over-prescribing and we look forward to its launch in the autumn."

 

[whopper]

These worries led to a recommendation from drug safety watchdogs in the UK that they not be given to people with dementia, and the government has been urged to strengthen this in England in its forthcoming dementia strategy.

Compared to immediate risks such as attacking other patients, staff or ripping IVs out, antipsychotics, despite the increased risks are justified in delirium or dementia patients. Simply because the risk of not taking them is worse. GAF should be less than 20. (20-40 IMHO is a grey are whether or not to use them).

They however are not justified in cases where doctors give them out in a patient with Alzheimer's where the person is not acting out in a manner dangerous to self or others.

 

[BabyPsychDoc]

Compared to immediate risks such as attacking other patients, staff or ripping IVs out, antipsychotics, despite the increased risks are justified in delirium or dementia patients. Simply because the risk of not taking them is worse. GAF should be less than 20. (20-40 IMHO is a grey are whether or not to use them).

They however are not justified in cases where doctors give them out in a patient with Alzheimer's where the person is not acting out in a manner dangerous to self or others.

I have never observed antipsychotics given to patients with Alzheimers if the patient did not present risk to either self or others. Apart from the fact that they clearly would not be indicated in such patients, you would not be able to get the local health authority to pay the bill unless you literally tried everything else without success.

 

[whopper]

I had a case last year, where a doctor was giving out antipsychotics to treat Alzheimer's. (and it wasn't a psychiatrist giving it out). I encountered the case during consults. The IM doc who was treating this patient didn't know why the antipsychotic was ordered so he consulted psychiatry (yeah well he could've found it out himself but why do the work when you can dump it to psyche?)

Well aside from the fact that there's no reason to give it simply for Alzheimers (she wasn't acting out or doing anything else dangerous), I'm not even sure she had Alzheimer's.

Scored a 29/30 on the MMSE, showed no problems with memory, according to her family she did not show any signs of memory problems. However since her GP dx'd her with Alzheimer's, they were upset that I reccomended her to be taken off of it because they were going to believe that doctor.

So I called up the GP, the office wouldn't let me talk to the GP directly. So I then requested that the records showing the justification for the diagnosis be faxed to the hospital.

That GP's office never faxed over the documents.

I kept to my reccomendation.