People With Dementia May Be Prescribed Interacting Drugs

A recent study in JAMA of people with dementia found that almost one in seven participants are taking three or more brain and central nervous system (CNS) medications, despite experts' warnings that they should limit such drugs, reports Medical News Today . The issue is that age-related and dementia-related changes in brain chemistry may lead to undesirable interactions. The same percentage of dementia patients also do not live in a nursing community. Among those taking multiple CNS drugs, 92 percent took the most commonly prescribed class of drugs — antidepressants — while 62 percent were taking anti-seizure medications. Roughly 41 percent of the CNS-active polypharmacy cohort also had prescriptions for benzodiazepines. Moreover, 47 percent were taking antipsychotics, which are not among the approved medications for dementia. "It appears that we have a lot of people on a lot of medications without a very good reason," said Donovan Maust at the University of Michigan. He and his colleagues suggest that more drug reviews by medical professionals could help identify negative interactions when people use three or more brain and CNS drugs in combination.