Free Republic

Ramona Lamascola thought she was losing her 88-year-old mother to dementia. Instead, she was losing her to overmedication. Last fall her mother, Theresa Lamascola, of the Bronx, suffering from anxiety and confusion, was put on the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. When she had trouble walking, her daughter took her to another doctor — the younger Ms. Lamascola’s own physician — who found that she had unrecognized hypothyroidism, a disorder that can contribute to dementia. Theresa Lamascola was moved to a nursing home to get these problems under control. But things only got worse. “My mother was screaming and out of it,...

ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK -- Older anti-psychotic drugs are no safer and might even be worse for the elderly than newer ones that the government warned about earlier this year - both raise the risk of death, a study suggests. The Food and Drug Administration asked drug makers in April to add warnings to the labels of newer anti-psychotics because studies showed the drugs nearly doubled the risk of death for older patients with dementia. These drugs are widely used to treat the aggressive behavior, delusions and hallucinations sometimes experienced by those with dementia, including Alzheimer's disease. Researchers at Harvard's...