psychiatric medication

Elderly And Drugged: Far More Psych Meds Prescribed To Old Than Young

Evidence suggests that anti-anxiety medications like Xanax increase the risk of falls in older adults, which can cause a cascade of problems. (johnofhammond/Flickr, with edits by WBUR)

By Nell Lake
Guest Contributor

Are we over-treating the elderly with psychiatric drugs?

That’s the natural question arising from a recent report that found adults over 65 are receiving psychotropic medications at twice the rate of younger adults. The study, published in this month’s Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, also found that elders are much less likely to get their mental health care from psychiatrists or to receive psychotherapy.

What’s the problem? First, psychotropic drugs generally pose greater risks to the elderly than they do to younger patients, and non-drug approaches, from therapy to meditation, may be as effective as psychotropic medications for some seniors’ mental disorders, without the risks.

The findings suggest that physicians and insurers should reassess psychotropic drug use among the elderly, says lead author Donovan Maust, a geriatric psychiatrist and assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan.

Maust’s team used 2007-2010 data from the CDC’s National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and from the U.S. Census to compare the rates at which older and younger adults — those 65 and older, and those 18-64 — get prescribed psychotropic medications during outpatient doctors’ visits. After analyzing more than 100,000 of these doctor visits, and taking into account the fact that the younger population is much larger than the older one, the researchers found that older adults were much more likely to be prescribed psychiatric drugs for anxiety, depression and other mental health conditions. Researchers also found that these seniors were less likely to receive other types of non-drug treatment for their mental distress.

The importance of all this is fairly clear: The elderly population is booming, and seniors use the health care system more than any other demographic. So, finding safe, effective and appropriate treatments for their mental health problems is critical — for the well-being of a large swath of people, and as a policy matter.

Too Many Meds, And The Wrong Kind?

Psychotropic drugs pose both direct and indirect risks to the elderly: First, the drugs themselves can be dangerous. The American Geriatrics Society lists many psychotropic medications as potentially inappropriate for elderly patients. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: aging, anxiety, depression, geriatrics, mental health, psychiatric medication, psychiatry

January 19, 2011 | 10:55 AM | Carey Goldberg

Special Report: Do Psych Drugs Do More Long-Term Harm Than Good?

It was an explosive question: Might it be that the overuse of psychiatric medications is making many people sicker than they would have been, and preventing their recovery? Are the medications causing an epidemic of long-term psychiatric disability?

And it was about to be debated at a pinnacle of psychopharmacology, the top-rated psychiatry department in the country.

The match had drawn a full house to the fabled “Ether Dome” at Massachusetts General Hospital, the historic medical amphitheater where ether was first demonstrated as an anesthetic in 1846.

Against a vintage backdrop of glass cases holding a mummy and a well-used skeleton, the two adversaries were about to engage in a “grand rounds” debate — academic medicine’s intellectual equivalent of hand-to-hand combat.

“Thank you,” Massachusetts General Hospital psychiatrist Andrew Nierenberg said wryly, “for coming to the belly of the beast.”

The question is, author Robert Whitaker responded just as wryly, “Will I survive?”

End of humor. The stakes were too high for jokes. In his new book, “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” Whitaker doesn’t just ask whether long-term medication might often do harm. He presents study after mainstream study that inform his thesis, and he calls for the psychiatry establishment to discuss it openly.

‘The ‘Silent Spring’ of Psychiatry?

A science journalism maven at Harvard told me recently, “Mark my words, this book is going to be the ‘SIlent Spring’ of psychiatry” — a reference to the classic Rachel Carson book that opened the country’s eyes to the harmful effects of DDT.

“Anatomy of an Epidemic” only came out in April; it remains to be seen how widely its ripples will spread. But one thing is already clear: It has set Bob Whitaker, an award-winning local journalist and author of four books, on a personal journey into unexplored territory, to the Ether Dome and beyond.

It is taking him to a national conference on his hypothesis led by psychiatrists and providers of mental health services in Oregon next month. And to a line-crossing move for any journalist: the founding of a non-profit,“The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care,” that will aim to present the science on various psychiatric treatments in a clear and unbiased way.

Most recently, that journey led him last week to stand in the Ether Dome beneath the curved rows of stadium-style seats, speaking upward to the full audience. Most of his listeners looked like students, except for a cluster of older men in the front whose bow-ties or suits gave them the look of staff.

: Looking up at the Ether Dome

As the psychiatry establishment goes, this truly was “the belly of the beast”: Massachusetts General’s psychiatry is consistently ranked as the top department in the country by U.S. News and World Report. Sitting at the very front in a dark navy sweater was Jerrold Rosenbaum, the department chair.

Whitaker began with the plot-line about psychiatric drugs that tends to dominate in American society: The introduction of Thorazine in 1955 kicked off a “psychopharmacological revolution” that has included a march of new antipsychotics and antidepressants that are “sort of antidotes to these disorders.” They make it possible to empty institutions, and prevent people from becoming chronically ill. All in all, a positive picture of progress.

Troubling questions

Except that there’s a troubling puzzle: Why, then, did the number of Americans on the disability rolls for mental health reasons triple between 1987 and 2007?

And more troubling questions: Yes, the drugs often help people short-term, and sometimes, longer term. But why do some data suggest that schizophrenics who take anti-psychotics fare worse, long-term, than those who don’t? Why do so many people with depression who take anti-depressants seem to flip into bipolar disorder? And why is the disability caused by bipolar disorder rising so sharply, anyway? Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, 2011 favorites, bipolar disorder, depression, Massachusetts General Hospital, psychiatric medication, psychiatry, psychopharmacology, schizophrenia

December 13, 2010 | 1:13 PM | Carey Goldberg

Must-Read: Globe Series On Children and SSI

No one’s evil. Everyone means well. But many low-income children end up on psychiatric drugs at least in part, it seems, because if they’re medicated, their families are likelier to be approved for hundreds of dollars a month in disability payments.

That’s my takeaway from the first installment of the superlative, nuanced and deeply reported series by Patricia Wen now running in the Globe.

But I’m no expert. I asked for a reaction from Robert Whitaker, award-winning journalist and author most recently of Anatomy of an Epidemic, a new book that investigates the skyrocketing number of adults and children disabled by mental illness.
His response:

“I think the families–and our society–really need to look at the toll that this can take on the child. The child declared eligible for SSI is now going to be medicated on a constant basis–after all, the child is now seen as seriously mentally ill– and often the drug treatment may include a powerful antipsychotic. Over the long term, such drug treatment can cause a host of physical, emotional and cognitive problems, and you are also setting the child on a ‘career path’ of lifelong mental patient. I don’t think the families are thinking about that when they turn to SSI for financial help; they don’t see what that this will do to their child down the road. And our society should also take a look at the extraordinary long-term financial cost of putting a child onto this path of life-long disability.”

Today’s installment of the series describes the heavy use of “speech delay” as a reason to put a child on disability payments, and the frequent failure to follow up on whether the disability remains.