Several dementia patients who are prescribed ‘chemical cosh’ antipsychotic drugs could be better treated with simple painkillers like paracetamol. Researchers found that simple painkillers significantly diminished the agitation experienced by dementia patients. Agitation, a frequent dementia symptom, is frequently treated with antipsychotic drugs, which have hazardous side effects.
Every year about one and half million sufferers in the UK are needlessly prescribed antipsychotics, which have a powerful sedative effect. It can worsen the symptoms of dementia and raise the risk of stroke or even death. These antipsychotics are frequently given to patients whose dementia makes them aggressive or agitated.
However, researchers from Kings College, London, and Norway speculated that the agitation is actually associated with pain and dementia patients are unable to express in other ways. For their study they examined three hundred and fifty patients in nursing home in Norway suffering from moderate to severe dementia.
Half of study subjects were given painkillers with every meal, while the other half continued receiving their normal treatments. After the duration of eight weeks there was seventeen percent diminution is agitation symptoms in the group who were given painkillers. This improvement was more enunciated that what would have been projected from antipsychotic treatment.
If pain of the patients was managed properly then doctors could diminish the number of prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs, concluded research team. According to Prof Clive Ballard, one of the report author and director of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, the finding was significant. Currently, pain is very under-treated in people with dementia as it is very hard to identify.
This could make a substantial difference to people’s lives and could help them live much better with dementia. But the painkillers should be given to patients only under the supervision of a doctor, added Prof Ballard. A new guideline are issued by the Alzheimer’s Society, appealing on doctors to think much harder prior to prescribing antipsychotics and to look at prescribing pain medication in its place.
The Care services minister Paul Burstow stated, it should act as a further call for GPs to carefully examine the reason why those with dementia display agitated behavior, rather than immediately resorting to antipsychotic medication.