ELDERLY DEATH RISK FAILS TO MAKE NEWS
I found this latest piece of research whilst gathering information on Anti-psychotic drugs, which I do at regular intervals. Many people will already know that a commonly recorded cause of death in elderly people is Pneumonia, it’s so common that it is rarely questioned.
I was therefore very concerned to find a article in The American Geriatrics Society Journal on a study by Dr Rob van Marum and Dr Wilma Knol into Anti -Psychotic drugs.
Their research says the elderly have a 60% higher risk of developing pneumonia in the first week of being prescribed Anti-Psychotic drugs.
The authors of the report stress that clinicians need to monitor for sedation after starting Anti-psychotic treatment and that a careful weighing of the possible risks is recommended before prescribing for elderly people.
Can you imagine signs of sedation ringing any alarm bells in care homes here? I wonder how many of the elderly or their relatives are aware of the risks involved with these drugs. People can only make an informed choice if they are given all the information.
The Government have known how dangerous these drugs are for years, will they ignore this newly discovered risk also.
The use of these drugs amounts to legalised murder and if the risk was to the general public it would be all over the news as in the Bernard Matthews bird flu outbreak, yet because it only affects the elderly not a word is said about it.
The fact that there is no money available to fund drugs that slow Alzheimer’s but there’s millions spent funding the chemical cosh, NICE would argue these new Alzheimer drugs are not funded because there is limited benefit from them, well is it not widely known there’s no benefit at all from Anti-psychotics when prescribed for the elderly with dementia, other than to make a lazy carers life easier and improve the profits of a care home.