NURSING HOMES ADDICTED TO DRUGS

Yesterday's Waterloo Region Record carried this story "Nursing home gets $50,000 to cut back on drugs". A report from the provincial health ministry last month found 45% of all nursing home residents age 65 to 79 were on anti-psychotic drugs. Nearly 1/3 of residents were on sedatives and 11% of all seniors in nursing homes were on both. It turns out that many residents were taking the drugs off label ie. for non prescribed uses. There is a litany of serious health side effects and the purpose of giving unprescribed drugs to seniors had more to do with controlling behaviours by drugging patients when there were staff shortages. I first posted here about this practice on April 23/14.