Ten of thousands of U.S. nursing home residents are being given antipsychotic drugs inappropriately – often in nursing homes that are short-staffed and underfunded, the Boston Globe reports .
The Globe analyzed federal data that it got under a Freedom of Information Act request to find evidence that roughly 185,000 nursing home residents were given antipsychotics in 2010 contrary to federal nursing home regulators’ recommendations.
Nursing homes that most often used these powerful, sedating drugs for conditions unrelated to a psychosis tended to have more residents deemed by staff to have behavioral problems, including wandering, being verbally or physically abusive, or resisting care. But the report also found “a clear link between the rate of antipsychotic use in a nursing home and its staffing level”.
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