By Kate Kneisel: For Complete Post, Click Here…
ngd-Maybe the use of them has absolutely nothing to do with any need of the resident, but the desire of staff to knock the residents out and make their jobs easier…
Rates remained high into 2021, despite lifting of pandemic restrictions.
Antipsychotic drug prescribing rates among people with dementia increased markedly during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, a multinational database study showed.
Notably, those rates did not return to prepandemic levels after the acute phase of the pandemic had ended, Kenneth K.C. Man, PhD, of University College London School of Pharmacy, and colleagues reported in JAMA Psychiatryopens in a new tab or window.
In U.S. Medicare data, the likelihood of dementia patients getting prescribed antipsychotics after the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions rose 43% (95% CI 1.20-1.71) compared with the same period in 2019.
While new diagnoses returned to normal in most of the databases, incidence in the latter months of 2021 remained below the prior 3-year mean in the U.S. data.
The researchers suggested that disruptions in dementia diagnosis services and increased mortality among those who were or would have been diagnosed with dementia were likely behind the changes.
