people with dementia is justified by the Royal College of Psychiatry's
Professor Sube Banerjee because of a risk to life - either their own or
someone else's.
"
From
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8356423.stm
"
The review, led by King's College London expert Professor Sube Banerjee,
accepted that for some people anti-psychotic drugs would be necessary.
But it said they should be used only for a maximum of three months and
when the person represented a risk to themselves or others.
Professor Banerjee estimated that of the 180,000 people given the drugs
each year, only 36,000 benefited.
"
Three months of antipsychotic use in the very elderly may have a
significant effect on life expectancy. People are dying because of the
risk to life. In truth the drugs are clearly not being used because of
the risk to a person's life or another. It's just convenience. 180,000
old people haven't suddenly turned into suicidal or homicidal maniacs in
the past decade. What's not been reported in this BBC News article
doesn't make the point that they're not rreally being used because of a
genuine risk that's scientifically established.
This really needs to be done since the evidence has come out on just how
many old people were dying because their behaviour was considered
unwanted and it was possible to treat using antipsychotics. The
straitjacket is a safer option though I'm not actually suggested these
be used.
Fuck it. Maybe I am. Maybe people need to see what they're doing to the
elderly. A pill makes people believe it's really a disease that's being
treated. Pills are what doctors give people to treat illnesses.
Straitjackets are obviously inhumane whereas pills are given by healers
to heal true diseases.
Antipsychotics being used to 'treat' behaviour unnecessarily is against
the Hippocratic Oath, no matter how bastardised it has become as the
modern oath doctors still take as part of their graduation, and it is
against every principle I thought developed world society was based
on. These drugs have bene shown to reduce life expectancy by 50% in
very elderly people and have been reported by the royal College of
Psychiatry to be responsible for the deaths of 1,800 old people with
dementia every year until something was done. They saw fit not to ban
their use in the community but hoped for their use to decrease by a
reasonable amount.
Of course, there's the health economics argument. It's what got the
Improved Access to Psychological Therapies scheme funded and funded
through the CSR cuts. The continued use of antipsychotics even after the
review and the change in the dementia strategy has the health economics
argument of reducing healthcare costs by up to 50% as those people will
be killed quicker by their doctors.
Of course, no one gives a shit that many schizophrenics and manic
depressives can end up on these medications for life. The reduction in
life expectnacy in their case - as has always been stipulated by
psychiatrists (apart from people llike Peter Breggin) is the lifestyle
factors of the supposed 'disease' rather than the reatment for a
behaviour that society can't accept.
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