…antipsychotic medication given to elderly people with dementia it should be at the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time and always after all other avenues have been tried and have failed.
A poignant and important article on the use of antipsychotic medications in treating people with dementia – please read and share!
This is a re-post from Jessica Kingsley Publishers. I came to know about Shibley Rahman through his blog, livingwelldementia.org. Check it out for some more great information in dementias, policy, and society – Thanks for your work, Dr. Rahman!
You can also read my related posts:
Some highlights:
A temptation of a medical doctor to prescribe a ‘magic bullet’ can easily explain away the ‘over-medicalisation of illness’, leading the Academy of Royal Colleges justifiably to take action earlier this year.
Every chemical medication has its side effects. I am always impressed with the ease at which the pharmaceutical industry is able to market their drugs, given that there are 1000 billion nerve cells in the human brain all connected with one another directly or indirectly in various ways.
With so many different functions of the human brain, such as memory, attention, perception, language or planning, to name but a few, it has been a difficult task to work out which particular ‘hubs’ involving parts of the brain are particularly involved in certain functions.
You can read the full article by clicking on the title, above.
I came across this article on nextavenue.org, a great source of information and advice for those 50+. Check them out, there’s lots to find on activity ideas, financial issues, working and volunteering, staying healthy, and much more.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a contact from a Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) in my home state of Montana who was seeking advice on how to drive dramatic changes in dementia care practices in the state’s nursing homes. (QIO’s are independent state organizations chartered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to advocate for high quality health care by providers receiving federal funding.)
She had seen Alive Inside and heard about my connection to the film (my mother runs one of the larger nursing homes in the state and has helped boost the film). Like so many other culture change advocates she saw this film as a clarion call for action.
She called asking for advice about how best to leverage the film to get nursing homes to adopt new practices of dementia care that will help dramatically reduce the use of anti-psychotic prescriptions to treat Alzheimer’s and dementia statewide.
“We too should take a vacation from our caregivers… enjoy the company of other people with dementia…”
It would be my hope that my envisioned Vacation Village would not promote stigma, but would be a place where people with dementia can come and enjoy the company of their families and others while taking a little break from everyday life and enjoying nature.
I have tried to avoid stigmatizing dementia in my ideas for this vacation place – starting with avoiding a name that includes dementia, like Dementia Village or Dementia Vacation. The point, rather, is to make a vacation spot that anyone would enjoy, and is accommodating, so that both the caregivers and the person with dementia can enjoy their holiday.
This is an interesting post on the stigma of dementia and how it is misconstrued and misused in ways that truly don’t benefit people who are living with the syndrome (or their families and caregivers).
Doctor Dementia and the Dementia Adventure 