A leading British medical journal has published a study indicating that drugs readily prescribed to combat dementia in Alzheimer’s patients double the risk of death in a three-year period.
The U.K.’s Alzheimer’s Research Trust paid for the study which was published in the most recent issue of The Lancet Neurology. The research was conducted by a team led by Clive Ballard of King’s College in London.
The study focused on 165 patients in Alzheimer’s care homes. All of the subjects had been taking antipsychotic drugs to battle the effects of dementia. For the research, about half the patients kept taking the antipsychotic medication while the other half began receiving a placebo.
After three years, about two-thirds of patients taking the placebo were still alive while only one-third of those taking the medication lived. Specifically, after 24 months, the survival rate for those on medication was 41 percent as opposed to 71 percent for those withdrawn from medication. After 36 months, 30 percent of those on medication survived while 59 percent on the placebo were still alive.
A report compiled for a British Member of Parliament last year showed that about 100,000 Alzheimer’s patients with dementia routinely receive antipsychotic medication. The drugs target the symptoms of dementia such as aggression and delusion.
Ballard said the lesson of the study is that the research and care-giving communities need to seek more benign treatments for dementia symptoms.
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