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The study found that there was nearly a 50% increased risk of dementia among patients aged 55 and over who had used strong anticholinergic medication daily for three years or more. Anticholinergic drugs help to contract and relax muscles. They work by blocking acetylcholine, a chemical that transmits messages in the nervous system. Doctors prescribe the drugs to treat a variety of conditions, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bladder conditions, allergies, gastrointestinal disorders and symptoms of Parkinson's disease. These medicines can have short-term side effects, including confusion and memory loss, but it is less certain whether long-term use increases the...

Antipsychotics and Maryland foster children In an attempt to ensure psychotropic medications are being appropriately prescribed to children, the Maryland Medicaid Pharmacy Program has established the Peer Review Program for Mental Health, in collaboration with the Behavioral Health Administration, the University of Maryland Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and School of Pharmacy, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Any prescription for antipsychotic medication to any child under 18 is automatically referred to the program.

Antipsychotics and Maryland foster children; Part 1 “It’s an evil drug.” So says Dam Le, who as a boy was prescribed Johnson & Johnson’s blockbuster drug Risperdal while in the custody of the Maryland foster care system.

Side-effects of drugs taken for insomnia and anxiety kill thousands. Why do doctors hand them out like Smarties? Updated: 04:22 EST, 15 September 2015 Soaring drug use, a growing number of addicts, far too few clinics to treat them and a rising death toll. This might sound like a scene from an impoverished country run by drug cartels - but it is, in fact, the day-to-day reality for NHS patients who are prescribed psychiatric drugs to treat anxiety, insomnia and depression. More than 80 million prescriptions for psychiatric drugs are written in the UK every year. Not only are these...

In the wake of the one-year-delayed Employer Mandate kicking in on January 1st, it should be emphasized that getting everyone insured is not the biggest problem facing American health care. Far from it. If by magic, every person in the US suddenly had platinum level health insurance, they would still have to embrace a system which has the distinction of spending much more than any other country for at best mediocre outcomes. There are many reasons for this, with Medicare heading the list. Today, though, let’s examine what can go wrong in our miserable and massively corrupted clinical trials jungle....

An alliance of drug companies and patient advocates, joined by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, is fiercely opposing an Obama administration proposal that would allow insurers to limit Medicare coverage for certain classes of drugs, including those used to treat depression and schizophrenia. The administration’s proposal would remove the protected status from three classes of drugs that has been in place since the program’s inception in 2006: immunosuppressant drugs used in transplant patients, antidepressants and antipsychotic medicines. They include many well-known drugs, such as Wellbutrin, Paxil and Prozac to treat depression, and Abilify and Seroquel to treat schizophrenia. Three other...

Since last month’s horrifying and heartbreaking school massacre in Newtown, Conn., politicians and the press have, as everyone knows,..... Other possible factors – from violent video games to the “failure of our mental-health system” to the unintended consequences of making schools “gun-free zones” – have taken a back seat to guns. Within hours of the gruesome mega-crime, the media had provided extensive, round-the-clock coverage of precisely which firearms, manufacturers and calibers the perpetrator had used, how he had obtained them from his mother, where they were originally purchased, and so on. But where, I’d like to ask my colleagues in...

You will never guess what the fifth and sixth best-selling prescription drugs are in the United States, so I’ll just tell you: Abilify and Seroquel, two powerful antipsychotics. In 2011 alone, they and other antipsychotic drugs were prescribed to 3.1 million Americans at a cost of $18.2 billion, a 13 percent increase over the previous year, according to the market research firm IMS Health. Those drugs are used to treat such serious psychiatric disorders as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe major depression. But the rates of these disorders have been stable in the adult population for years. So how did...

Has America become a nation of psychotics? You would certainly think so, based on the explosion in the use of antipsychotic medications. In 2008, with over $14 billion in sales, antipsychotics became the single top-selling therapeutic class of prescription drugs in the United States, surpassing drugs used to treat high cholesterol and acid reflux. Once upon a time, antipsychotics were reserved for a relatively small number of patients with hard-core psychiatric diagnoses - primarily schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - to treat such symptoms as delusions, hallucinations, or formal thought disorder. Today, it seems, everyone is taking antipsychotics. Parents are told...

New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows... --snip-- The F.D.A. has approved antipsychotic drugs for children specifically to treat schizophrenia, autism and bipolar disorder. But they are more frequently prescribed to children for other, less extreme conditions, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, aggression, persistent defiance or other so-called conduct disorders — especially when the...

(NaturalNews) Today an FDA advisory panel approved the prescribing of powerful mind-altering chemicals for children. Seroquel, Zyprexa and Goedon have now been approved by the advisory panel to be prescribed to children as young as 10 years old to treat a fictitious disease invented by psychiatrists and given the name "bipolar disorder." (There is no such thing as a bipolar disorder disease. It is merely a name assigned to children demonstrating the predictable side effects of correctable dietary imbalances.) More ...

A former New York state inmate alleges he was permanently injured when a prison nurse failed to treat a 55-hour erection caused by an anti-psychotic drug. In a federal court suit, Dawud Yaduallah, formerly known as David Hanley, said the damage has caused problems in his marriage and he needs a prosthesis to "possibly restore some sexual function, The New York Post reported Monday. Yaduallah said nurse Judith Lovelace's alleged "cruel and uncivilized conduct" occurred in March 2006 at the prison in Fishkill when his dosage of Seroquel was increased by 25 percent. Side effects of Seroquel, an anti-psychotic, include...

A new government study published Monday has found that the medicines most often prescribed for schizophrenia in children and adolescents are no more effective than older, less expensive drugs and are more likely to cause some harmful side effects. The standards for treating the disorder should be changed to include some older medications that have fallen out of use, the study’s authors said. The results, being published online by The American Journal of Psychiatry, are likely to alter treatment for an estimated one million children and teenagers with schizophrenia and to intensify a broader controversy in child psychiatry over the...

Study shows placebos as good as antipsychotics for the intellectually disabled. Scientists have discovered that taking a sugar pill is more effective than routine medications in treating aggression in people with intellectual disabilities. Until now, patients with intellectual disabilities have been prescribed antipsychotic drugs — normally given to people with a psychiatric disease like schizophrenia — to treat aggressive behaviour such as head banging. But evidence for the drugs' effectiveness has been thin. “Antipsychotic drugs are widely used because they are cheap and at high doses they sedate people,” says Eric Emerson at Lancaster University, an expert in the behaviour...

When Anya Bailey developed an eating disorder after her 12th birthday, her mother took her to a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who prescribed a powerful antipsychotic drug called Risperdal. Created for schizophrenia, Risperdal is not approved to treat eating disorders, but increased appetite is a common side effect and doctors may prescribe drugs as they see fit. Anya gained weight but within two years developed a crippling knot in her back. She now receives regular injections of Botox to unclench her back muscles. She often awakens crying in pain. Isabella Bailey, Anya’s mother, said she had no idea...

Widely prescribed anti-psychotic drugs do not help most Alzheimer's patients with delusions and aggression and are not worth the risk of sudden death and other side effects, the first major study on sufferers outside nursing homes concludes. The finding could increase the burden on families struggling to care for relatives with the mind-robbing disease at home. "These medications are not the answer," said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which paid for the study. He said better medications are at least several years away. Three-fourths of the 4.5 million Americans with Alzheimer's disease develop aggression,...

<p>INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Eli Lilly and Co. has won federal approval to sell an injectable version of its top-selling anti-psychotic Zyprexa, giving doctors a new option to quickly calm agitated patients.</p> <p>The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the new shot form of the eight-year-old drug is expected to supplement Zyprexa's tablet form, used for long-term treatment of schizophrenia and the manic stage of bipolar disorder. The faster-acting injectable version is designed for single or occasional uses in patients during episodes when they become agitated and in some cases violent.</p>