Watch Your Loved One's Treatments

Doctors, advocates and other parties have all expressed concern over how drugs are prescribed in nursing home environments. There are some drugs that, while they have some benefits for which they are employed, are also known to have some very serious side effects and, in some cases, to have side effects that are deadly. These medications carry what are called "black box warnings" and their number includes quite a few drugs that are used as antipsychotics.

When you have a loved one in a nursing home, they are in an environment where all different types of care and medications are likely to be ordered. These will probably include some that you don't know much about and, if you're in charge of making decisions about treatment, you may want to learn more about them and how they affect people in some circumstances.

Antipsychotics and Dementia

Some antipsychotic drugs are known to have very dangerous, even deadly, side effects when taken by people with dementia. These drugs, however, make very convenient chemical restraints—as the term is normally used—for nursing homes to use on patients who are unruly. The concept is that the patient can be better controlled and that means that the patients demand less time from the staff. Less time leads to neglect and even abuse. The misuse of these drugs is recognized by advocates and some doctors as a common form of nursing home abuse that isn't addressed adequately.

Beyond the emotional damage of improperly administered antipsychotic drugs or even the physical damage of neglect, the reckless mixing of medications can result in serious, even fatal, medical side effects.

It's no surprise that advocates for the elderly are demanding stricter supervision and standards for how these drugs are used. Better communication between doctors and patients about the side effects is also something that is recognized as being required to improve the situation.

If you have a loved one in a nursing home and you feel like they're being drugged just to keep them under control, talk to their doctor about the issue. If you have suspicions that someone you love was abused in this way, contact a lawyer for nursing home abuse. Nursing home mistreatment is sometimes facilitated by the misuse of drugs, and it's a potentially deadly situation.

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