Alzheimer's Drugs Could Be Deadly to Elderly

Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia and causes symptoms including aggression, delusions and hallucinations.

According to a new study, anti-psychotic drugs commonly used to treat Alzheimer's disease may lead to an increase in a patient's chance of dying within a few years.
Therefore for the vast majority of Alzheimer's patients, taking these drugs is probably not a worthwhile risk. The research was published in Lancet Neurology, a medical journal.

Previous studies have shown anti-psychotic drugs, which can help control the aggression and hallucinations for a few months raise the risk of death in older patients with dementia. There are also other side effects, including respiratory problems and stroke.

In the United Kingdom and the United States, guidelines advise doctors to use anti-psychotic drugs cautiously and temporarily. But in many nursing homes in Europe and North America, up to 60 percent of patients with dementia are routinely given the drugs for one to two years.

However, experts are still not sure how the anti-psychotics increase patients' risk of dying. But they think the drugs could be damaging to the brain and their sedative effects make patients less able to exercise and more susceptible to deadly infections.