Alzheimer’s Society Calls For Rethink On Sedatives

The Alzheimer’s Society is asking the government to consider spending more money on training care home staff and to cut the NHS’ prescription of sedatives to dementia patients.

A BBC Panorama investigation revealed that the NHS is spending £80 million on prescribing anti-psychotic drugs to dementia patients, which the Alzheimer’s Society said could be money better spent.

More than 100,000 people with dementia are currently being prescribed sedatives and the first All Party Parliamentary Group for Dementia has announced an inquiry into the overuse of the drugs in dementia patients.

Neil Hunt, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, said: “Sedating a person with dementia should be a last resort but too often doctors are turning to the medicine cabinet without considering the alternatives. The first parliamentary inquiry into the practice is also an important step to uncovering the true scale of the problem, and we look forward to its findings.”

Mr Hunt said sedatives “leave people with dementia in a zombie like state, robbed of their quality of life” and pointed out that research shows that anti-psychotics have minimal benefit and increase the risk of strokes.

“It is absurd that we are wasting millions of pounds prescribing these drugs when this money would be much better spent training health professionals in dementia care,” Mr Hunt said.

“Dementia isn’t only about memory loss; more than half of all people with dementia experience behavioural symptoms as part of their condition. Basic dementia training can help staff deal with these symptoms and has been shown to reduce the use of anti-psychotics drugs by 50 per cent. This lazy and costly prescribing must stop,” he concluded.