South Carolina Lawyer Blog
Bert Louthian, a South Carolina attorney who focuses on whistleblower lawsuits, said today that he supports government inspectors who recently told lawmakers, according to Fox News, that more needs to be done to prevent doctors from prescribing psychiatric drugs that are not approved to treat dementia in afflicted nursing home residents.
Fox News reported that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that 83 percent of Medicare claims for antipsychotic medications – normally used to treat people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder – were prescribed for patients with dementia. Almost 305,000 nursing home residents were prescribed antipsychotics.
The medications have been linked to an increased risk of death in seniors, which has led the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to repeatedly caution against prescribing such drugs for easing aggressive behaviors associated with dementia, according to Fox News.