A new study warns that many older adults with dementia are still being prescribed medications that can be dangerous for their health.
These drugs include antipsychotics, barbiturates, and benzodiazepines—medications that act on the brain and nervous system. They have been linked to falls, confusion, and hospital visits in older people.
According to the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, one out of every four seniors on Medicare with dementia received prescriptions for these drugs. This is concerning because expert guidelines strongly recommend avoiding these medications in people with dementia due to the high risk of side effects.
The study was led by Dr. John Mafi, a professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. His team looked at prescription data from 2013 to 2021 by linking Medicare records with a national health and retirement survey.
They tracked how often seniors were prescribed drugs that affect the central nervous system—especially those considered unsafe for people with cognitive problems.
The researchers found that 25% of seniors with dementia were prescribed these risky medications. By comparison, 17% of seniors with normal memory and thinking skills and 22% of those with mild cognitive issues received the same drugs.
During the years covered by the study, the overall use of these medications dropped slightly among all seniors on Medicare—from 20% in 2013 to 16% in 2021.
However, researchers still found that more than two-thirds of these prescriptions in 2021 had no clear medical reason noted in the patient’s records. That means many of these prescriptions may not have been appropriate.
Breaking the data down by drug type, the study found that:
Benzodiazepine prescriptions dropped from 11% to 9%.
Sleep aid use went from 7% to 3%.
Antipsychotic prescriptions rose slightly, from 3% to 4%.
Anticholinergic antidepressants remained steady, staying under 3%.
Barbiturates dropped slightly from 0.4% to 0.3%.
Prescriptions that were considered clearly justified fell slightly from 6% to 5.5% over the study period. In contrast, prescriptions seen as inappropriate dropped more noticeably—from 16% to just above 11%. Most of the improvement came from fewer prescriptions for benzodiazepines and sleep medications.
Lead author Dr. Annie Yang, an internal medicine doctor at UCLA, said older adults and their caregivers should talk with their doctors about the safety and need for these medications. She emphasized the importance of checking whether the drugs are truly necessary. If not, patients and doctors should explore safer options or talk about stopping the medications.
In conclusion, the study highlights a serious concern about overuse of potentially harmful brain-altering drugs in seniors with dementia.
While there has been some progress in cutting down on these prescriptions, many older adults are still at risk. The findings suggest a need for more careful prescribing practices and better communication between patients, caregivers, and doctors.
If you care about brain health, please read studies about inflammation that may actually slow down cognitive decline in older people, and low vitamin D may speed up cognitive decline.
For more health information, please see recent studies about common exercises that could protect against cognitive decline, and results showing that this MIND diet may protect your cognitive function, prevent dementia.
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