Antipsychotic treatment in patients with dementia receiving palliative care: efficiency, fall risk and cognitive impact
Antipsychotic treatment in patients with dementia receiving palliative care: efficiency, fall risk and cognitive impact

Summary/Abstract: Antipsychotics are widely used in treatment of elderly related psychiatric disorders such asdelirium, organic hallucinosis. The long-term uses of such drugs are related with increasedrisks. The objective of this study is to determine efficiency of small doses of antipsychotics inrelieving target symptoms and monitoring short-term use in patients diagnosed with dementiareceiving palliative care. The study was conducted in a clinical department for palliative carereserved for patients with severe dementia over a period of 1 year. The study samplecomprised 56 patients, 31 of which received antipsychotics. Measures used included MiniMental State Exam (MMSE), Neuropsychiatric Inventory Nursing Home Version (NPI-NH),Fall-Risk (FR) Scale, patient records, medication records and fall incidents. We found asignificant improvement on NPI-NH Scale (p<0.05) for patients that received antipsychoticsand had psychosis, agitation, aggressiveness in accordance with clinical observations. Therewere no significant changes for MMSE (p=0.56) or FR Scale (p=0.87). Small doses ofantipsychotics have a beneficial impact in treating psychosis and agitation with aggressivebehavior in patients with Dementia receiving palliative care. The study showed that the use ofantipsychotic medication doesn’t correlate with increased cognitive degradation or fall risk.The particularities of these cases need to be further explored.

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