There are places where people are drugged out of their minds with antipsychotics, places where they’re unable to talk or even think – essentially put into “chemical restraints” so that they’re easier to handle.
You might think that I’m talking about psych wards or detention centers in Third-World countries, but I’m not. These horrific “treatments” are being given to thousands of seniors all over the U.S. every single day.
Six years ago, a federal program went into effect that was supposed to stop this form of abuse – giving risky heavy-duty meds to nursing home patients. But guess what? Very little has changed.
A new study has confirmed that not only are these facilities still drugging patients into submission… but the feds are acting as if they’ve also been sedated when it comes to enforcing laws to protect vulnerable seniors.
We’re up against a system of negligence and greed that appears to have no boundaries. Experts say that along with employees keeping patients drugged up (which makes it easier to keep these facilities short-staffed), Big Pharma has played a part by aggressively marketing dangerous antipsychotic meds to nursing homes.
That’s why it’s more urgent than ever that you know exactly how you can protect yourself and your loved ones – especially if they’re a bit on the older side — from becoming victims of a health-care system that seems to have gone berserk.
Under the influence
Walter, an 81-year-old resident of a nursing facility in Texas, can clearly tell you what’s being done to him – once the drugs wear off, that is.
While he’s under the influence of these meds, however, he says that he can’t think straight or even talk.
But Walter’s case isn’t particularly unusual. A new study done by the group Human Rights Watch (HRW) found that during any week in the U.S., around 180,000 people in nursing facilities are given antipsychotic drugs to keep them sedated.
And that’s without permission from the patient or a family member.
Now, you might think that consent is required before risky meds such as Risperdal, Seroquel, or Abilify (a dangerous antipsychotic that’s unbelievably advertised on television using cartoons) are dispensed. And you’d be right.
Laws requiring that, however, don’t appear to be doing much at all to stop the problem. In fact, a recent study done by NPR found that when nursing homes flagrantly ignore such rules and regulations, government officials rarely fine them.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency responsible for enforcing these regulations, can levy penalties ranging from a “plan of correction” to monetary fines and even booting nursing homes out of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. But as that NPR study found, a mere 2 percent of nursing homes that continue to overmedicate residents are even at risk of being fined.
It sure seems like the owners of these facilities are being treated with a whole lot more respect than they show the residents!
And that’s especially tragic because those kinds of meds can be deadly for anyone with dementia or Alzheimer’s. Abilify, for example, has a big black-box warning saying that older patients with dementia are at “an increased risk of death” from using it.
This form of drug abuse has reached epidemic proportions — and regulators sure aren’t stepping in to stop it!
But don’t think that only nursing home residents are at risk. This problem has gone way beyond that and into places you might never suspect, such as residential and rehab facilities.
For example, the HRW report cites the story of Ruth, a 62-year-old patient who was sent for rehab after suffering a minor stroke. Soon afterward — and without her consent — she was being given an antipsychotic drug that was crushed and hidden in her apple sauce.
“It knocks you out…I sleep all the time,” she said, adding that she fears it’s going to kill her. (After being interviewed for that report, Ruth was released and sent home the next day.)
So, what can you do? Certainly, you can’t be with a loved one in a nursing home every minute to monitor their care.
Well, there are some protective measures you can take. If someone in your family is being cared for in a nursing facility or even a short-term rehab center, the first thing you want to do is insist on seeing a complete list of every single drug they’re being given. If the names of some are unfamiliar, do some research and find out what they are. (Abilify, for example, can also go under the name aripiprazole.)
And if something looks fishy but the staff tells you that a doctor signed off on it, don’t think that makes everything A-OK. Make sure specific instructions are given that no new meds are to be administered without your approval (or the approval of whomever has been put in charge of care).
But since, as in Ruth’s case, that might happen in sneaky ways or while you’re not looking, also watch for signs that may indicate they’ve been overmedicated, such as:
- sudden changes in personality and behavior,
- excessive sleeping,
- confusion, and
- any new or unusual symptoms that seem to have come out of the blue.
Also, if you need to spend any time recovering from an illness or accident in a rehab facility, don’t simply take the meds you’re given without finding out more. Ask what they’re for… who prescribed them… and what the side effects might be. And if you have a “buddy” keeping an eye out for you, tell them exactly what, if any, drugs you should be on so that they’ll know what to look out for.
What’s clear is that carefully watching out for ourselves and our loved ones, rather than relying on others to do the right thing, is all that we can do right now to avoid being victimized.
“Risky antipsychotic drugs still overprescribed in nursing homes” Ina Jaffe, February 5, 2018, NPR, npr.org
