Sunday 16 February 2014

Madness

I've read online about a disturbing way in which multiple drugs are sometimes prescribed for people living with dementia. This is how it goes, based on an actual example. The first drug is prescribed to deal with dementia symptoms. The person then becomes violent. A drug to reduce the violence is prescribed in addition. The person now starts having frightening hallucinations. A third drug is added, an anti-psychotic which causes the person to become zombie-like. Now, if the first drug has clearly not worked in the way it should have done - which is often the case - surely the obvious, sensible, logical thing to do is to stop it. Instead, the situation is complicated and compounded by the addition of another drug which also worsens the situation. And then another drug is added. Which worsens the situation further. I wonder what the record is for the number of drugs prescribed in this kind of sequence?

No comments:

Post a Comment