Hazard to the Elderly

The elderly needs to know more about their bodies more than ever to be able to identify certain disabilities or disorders. During these years, they are more susceptible to diseases and sickness that could harm their frail health. Today, it is not new for pharmaceutical companies to develop and come out with new medications for different treatments among the elderly. This scientific breakthrough of having new medications for different indications has the idea for better health, but with the growing number of differentiated symptoms, not all medications can work as effective as they can.

One common problem among the elderly would be having dementia, or the gradual death of brain cells. This leads to the elderly impairments in memory, planning, reasoning, and personality. Although most dementia patients are among the elderly, this disability is not related to being old. Causes of dementia would be of Alzheimer’s disease, followed by vascular or multi-infarct dementia.

This particular disorder is discussed mainly because of the possible dangers that medications do to the elderly. According to a Canadian study, prescribing antipsychotic medications to senior citizens may be dangerous. Such antipsychotic treatments are generally used for the management of behavioral problems (such as aggression), which is sometimes linked to dementia. These medications are commonly used for treating psychosis with conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, and delusional disorders, among others. According to the research study, the elderly patients that were given antipsychotic medications has an increased risk of having a life threatening event that can lead to hospitalization and even death, all within a month of starting the treatment.

From this study, there are almost 21, 000 older adults all aged 66 years and above who participated and is living in the community, all experiencing dementia. These sets of adults were compared to another 21,000 individuals, all living inside the nursing home. After a few years, the researchers looked at the increased risk of hazardous events that eventually led to hospitalization within thirty days of starting the treatment. According to lead author Dr. Rochon, this form of treatment needs caution even when short term therapy is prescribed, to ensure that the benefits of the medications outweigh the risks it brings to the individual.

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