ALZHEIMER'S: REWARD AND RISK?
Antipsychotic Drugs Increase Death Risk
Antipsychotic drugs may not be a good choice for Alzheimer's patients.
The latest research from British scientists indicates that people with Alzheimer's who are prescribed antipsychotic drugs face a considerably higher death risk than do patients not given these medications.
Short-term use of antipsychotics has shown some benefit for Alzheimer's symptoms. A 2006 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found a reduction in agitation and aggression in some Alzheimer's patients. But the findings from researchers at the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King's College, London, found that prolonged use can have serious side effects, including Parkinson's-like symptoms, chest infections, a decline in brain function, stroke and death.
For the study, lead researcher Clive Ballard, MD, and his colleagues randomly assigned 128 Alzheimer's patients to one of several antipsychotics or a placebo. The antipsychotic drugs included thioridazine, chlorpromazine, haloperidol, trifluoperazine or risperidone. The researchers found that, over the study period, the risk of death was 42 percent lower among people taking a placebo compared with those taking antipsychotics.
"It's an eye-opening study, since it was one of the few non-company sponsored studies to look at long-term risks," says dementia expert P. Murali Doraiswamy, MD, chief of the biological psychiatry division at Duke University.
But Dr. Doraiswamy doesn't rule out antipsychotic use entirely. "If there is no other way to stop an Alzheimer's patient from acting dangerously, and all other measures have failed, then antipsychotics can be used as a measure of last resort, but only for the shortest possible time at the lowest possible dose," he says. The findings were published January 8 online in The Lancet Neurology.