Tag Archive for 'dementia'

Antipsychotic drugs given to elderly despite increased death risk

Published on May 19, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

A recent government audit discovered that almost one in every seven elderly nursing home residents are given strong atypical antipsychotic drugs, without the consideration that these medicines raise the risk of death and are not approved for such treatments. Nearly all of these patients have dementia. The FDA has warned that these drugs, usually given to patients with serious conditions such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, are not appropriate for these patients.

This audit found that in the first part of 2007, the federal Medicare program paid for antipsychotics that were given in error during the first six months  of 2007. This cost the program an astounding $116 million for that first half of that year.

Daniel Levinson, who is the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote that “government, taxpayers, nursing home residents as well as their families and caregivers should be outraged and seek solutions.” He also pointed out that these drugs such as Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify and Geodon, are “potentially lethal” to some elderly patients and that some drug manufacturers illegally marketed their medicines for these uses “putting profits before safety.”

The audit is a rare evaluation done by the government to check if doctors are treating Medicare patients as they should in nursing homes. Levinson recommended that the government should keep a record of the diagnoses given to Medicare patients so it can determine if the drugs prescribed to them are accurate and suitable for the patients’ needs.

Even though this is common in the private sector, an oversight such as this is extremely rare in the Medicare program and would most likely be strongly advised against by doctors’ groups and most in Congress who see government intrusions into the doctor-patient relationship as wrong.

In reaction to the audit, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that some of the inaccurate use of antipsychotics in elderly nursing home patients is the consequence of drug manufacturers paying kickbacks to nursing homes to increase those prescriptions.

Both abstinence and excess drinking linked to dementia

Published on January 24, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Scientists have recently found that whether you drink too much or not at all, you may increase your risk for developing dementia.

In the December issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, a Finnish study found that people who either didn’t drink at all or those who drank heavily, are at increased risk for dementia later in life.

Led by Jyri Virta from the University of Turku in Finland, scientists discovered that the pattern of drinking and the amount of alcohol consumed were both crucial factors in the risk for dementia.

For example, people who drank the quantity of a bottle of wine at one sitting only once a month but controlled their drinking the rest of the time, still increased their risk for dementia according to the researchers. The study found that binge drinking actually doubled the risk.

Even more scary was the fact that the study claims that passing out from heavy drinking just once was enough to increase one’s risk for cognitive impairment.

The research depended on a study group established in 1974 called the Finnish twin cohort. It explored links between the environment and chronic diseases.

In a statement the scientist  Jyri Virta said, “Our finding is significant as the changes typical of Alzheimer’s disease – the most common dementia syndrome – are thought to start appearing two to three decades before clinical manifestation and therefore identification of early risk factors is imperative.”

Surprisingly, people who never drank alcohol were found to be at more risk for cognitive impairment than moderate drinkers. This finding provides even more proof that totally staying away from alcohol can increase some health risks. In earlier research, non-drinkers were four times more likely to get rheumatoid arthritis than moderate drinkers.

The researchers used questionnaires on which people rated their own drinking, possibly distorting the results.

Virta said that one explanation for moderate drinkers showing some health benefits could be that they are more likely to live healthier in general.

Hypertension may be a culprit in developing dementia

Published on January 27, 2010 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

New research has found that one of the best ways to keep from getting dementia is to control your blood pressure.

During the study, scientists scanned the brains of people to reveal that hypertension causes some kind of scarring that is related to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. The scars can begin to form in middle age, years before memory problems are apparent.

The new evidence is so strong that the National Institutes of Health is planning on studying thousands of people with hypertension to see if vigorous treatment will help protect their hearts and their brains. This aggressive treatment will involve getting blood pressure lower than normal recommendations.

The largest factor for Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia is age. Dementia affects about one in eight people who are 65 and older.

For a long time now, scientists knew that many of the triggers for heart disease such as obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes appear to increase the chances for getting dementia. This said, they thought that the link was with “vascular dementia”, which are memory problems related to small strokes; not the frightening Alzheimer’s disease. Now, specialists are finding that many patients have a mixture of both types of dementia.

Having hypertension, which is a blood pressure reading of 140 over 90 or higher, weakens arteries and  also seems to spur Alzheimer’s disease-like activity. One culprit could be the scarring known as white matter lesions. White matter works like the brain’s telephone network with a system of  nerve fibers that permit the brain cells to communicate with each other. Unfortunately even small increases in blood pressure can cause harm to the tiny blood vessels that sustain the white matter. This damage causes interruptions to those signals.

The new studies found that MRI scans revealed that women 65 and older with hypertension had notably more white matter lesions in their brains eight years later. The journal Stroke just published comparable evidence from a John Hopkins University-led study that observed 983 people for more than 15 years, beginning in middle age. The results showed that the more time people spent with uncontrolled high blood pressure, the more white matter harm they incurred.

All this said, hypertension by itself doesn’t mean one is condemned to get dementia. There are far more people with hypertension than dementia; about one in three adults in the U.S.