First, do no harm? Common anticholinergic meds seen to increase dementia risk in older patients

Com­mon­ly Pre­scribed Meds Could Raise Demen­tia Risk (Web­MD): “Doc­tors often pre­scribe anti­cholin­er­gic drugs for a vari­ety of ills. But a new study sug­gests they may increase the risk of demen­tia in old­er patients. These med­i­cines include every­thing from Benadryl (diphen­hy­dramine) to cer­tain antipsy­chotics and Parkin­son’s meds. They’re used to treat a wide range of other…

Read More

Study: Common medication treatments for PTSD can increase the risk of developing dementia

—– Drugs for PTSD linked to increased risk of demen­tia (The Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Jour­nal): “Cer­tain psy­chotrop­ic drugs used to treat post-trau­­mat­ic stress dis­or­der (PTSD) increase the risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia, includ­ing in patients who do not have PTSD but take the drugs for oth­er con­di­tions, study results pub­lished in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Geri­atrics Society

Read More

Time is over for “one size fits all” dementia treatments. Next: How to best integrate non-pharmacologic and pharmacologic approaches

. Time to ‘just say no’ to behav­ior-calm­ing drugs for Alzheimer patients? Experts say yes (Med­ical Xpress): “Doc­tors write mil­lions of pre­scrip­tions a year for drugs to calm the behav­ior of peo­ple with Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er types of demen­tia. But non-drug approach­es actu­al­ly work bet­ter, and car­ry far few­er risks, experts con­clude in a…

Read More

Grand Rounds 5:12 — Healthcare Reform Q&A

If Dr. Rob can inter­view San­ta, why can’t I inter­view a select group of health & med­ical blog­gers? They will have some good ideas to share”. So did Pres­i­­dent-elect Oba­ma came to real­ize a few days ago. After his peo­ple kind­ly con­tact­ed our peo­ple, we felt com­pelled to grant him open access to our col­lec­tive wisdom.…

Read More