Thomas, a former executive assistant, had been given so many heavy-duty medications, including illegally administered antipsychotics, by the Ventura Convalescent Hospital in November of 2010 that she could no longer function. If one drug caused sleeplessness and anxiety, she was given a different medication to counteract those side effects. If yet another drug induced agitation or the urge to constantly move, she was medicated again for that.
Yes, my mom had Alzheimer's, but she wasn't out of it when she went into the nursing home. She could dress and feed herself, walk on her own. You could have a conversation with her," says Levine. "My mother went into Ventura for physical therapy. Instead, she was drugged up to make her submissive. I believe that my mother died because profit and greed were more important than people."
A Ventura County Superior Court judge agreed that Levine had a legitimate complaint against the nursing home. In May, attorneys from the law firm Johnson Moore in Thousand Oaks, Calif., joined by lawyers from AARP Foundation, agreed to a settlement in an unprecedented class-action suit against the facility for using powerful and dangerous drugs without the informed consent of residents or family members. "It is the first case of its kind in the country, and hopefully we can replicate this nationwide," says attorney Kelly Bagby, senior counsel for AARP Foundation Litigation.
A national problem
Tragically, what happened to Patricia Thomas is not an isolated incident. According to Charlene Harrington, professor of nursing and sociology at the University of California, San Francisco, as many as 1 in 5 patients in the nation's 15,500 nursing homes are given antipsychotic drugs that are not only unnecessary, but also extremely dangerous for older patients.
Full Article and Source:
Antipsychotics Overprescribed in Nursing Homes
See Also:
Kickbacks to Doctors
5 comments:
When will it end?
I found my father drugged and restrained in a hospital, and pulled him right out into a rehab!
Every time I see an article like this, I'm glad to see it. It amazes me that with all that's out in media about drugging the elderly, many people are still unaware.
I see so much of this drugging it is just plain ABUSE! needs to STOP!
Back in the late 70´s I worked as a nurses aid in a psychiatric clinic. The elderly woman in the geriatric clinic derpartment, where given drugs so they would keep quiet. They used to sit on their potty-chairs all day, counting the little squares on the tablecloth. - Not much work for the nurses there. In an another house where I worked, lived the men. The same setting, mostly dementia or alzheimer patients. Hier the pharma companies tested out new medications, that did more harm than good. I opposed to this, and lost my job. This kind of abuse on elderly excist for a very long time now. Making more profit with less workers makes it worse. The nurses doing very little for the elderly´s emotional well being,
Here's how it works. Prior to a psychiatric examination or review, the guardian and the psychiatrist (usually court appointed) have a conversation and the guardian explains the symptoms to the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist then meets with the ward and doesn't really find anything significantly wrong with the ward but, bearing in mind the symptoms described by the guardian, his report might very well consider words such as: "Consideration should (or could) be given to the use of ( Psychiatrist's perferred drug) or other antipsychotic to help with this condition". The problem is the symptoms described by the guardian can very well be totally fabricated in order to keep the money flowing into his/her pocket; the psychiatrist wants to stay on the list of possible "court appointed" examiners and does not want to contradict the observations of the guardian and; the caregiver may very well cause the drug to actually be prescribed for reasons having nothing at all to do with the health and well being of the ward. The result can very well be the deterioration of the health and well being of the ward and the continued incarceration or even early demise of your loved one.
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