From the AOA Morning Brief:

Dementia Patients Increasingly Being Given Antipsychotic Medications, Research Indicates.

NPR (5/7) reports that research “from the AARP Public Policy Institute finds that dementia patients living at home or in assisted living facilities are increasingly being given antipsychotic” medications, even though such medications “are not approved to treat dementia.” The study analyzed information from Medicare Advantage plans from 2012 to 2015. When the study began, “12.6 percent of dementia patients living at home or in assisted living had prescriptions for antipsychotic” medications, but “by the end of the...study period, 13.4 percent of dementia patients living at home or in assisted living had prescriptions for antipsychotic” medications.