Medication Abuse For Dementia Patients
Posted by Heather on June 25th, 2008 / 
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How often do we see our residents acting out? A lot. Do we ever wonder if it’s the drugs they are taking? Perhaps we should.
Ramona Lamascola thought she was losing her 88-year-old mother to dementia. Instead, she was losing her to overmedication.
Last fall her mother, Theresa Lamascola, of the Bronx, suffering from anxiety and confusion, was put on the antipsychotic drug Risperdal. When she had trouble walking, her daughter took her to another doctor — the younger Ms. Lamascola’s own physician — who found that she had unrecognized hypothyroidism, a disorder that can contribute to dementia.
Theresa Lamascola was moved to a nursing home to get these problems under control. But things only got worse. “My mother was screaming and out of it, drooling on herself and twitching,” said Ms. Lamascola, a pediatric nurse. The psychiatrist in the nursing home stopped the Risperdal, which can cause twitching and vocal tics, and prescribed a sedative and two other antipsychotics.
“I knew the drugs were doing this to her,” her daughter said. “I told him to stop the medications and stay away from Mom.”
Not until yet another doctor took Mrs. Lamascola off the drugs did she begin to improve.
At work, we should ask the nurses if our residents are taking any new meds; if they are, we should ask if there are specific or not-so-specific side effects WE should know of, and report. So many times older people are drugged up and we think this is WHO the person is…I once worked with a woman who was DX with dementia- but she wasn’t demented. It was her meds. It took months to figure things out, but she ended up being discharged from the nursing home. If it weren’t for the excellent nurses who were very aware of drug interactions and side effects, the poor lady most surely would have died in the facility.
August 5th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Wow a lot has happened since I worked and there is a lot to learn. How do I get quick in servicce hours online?