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SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2009
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NEWS ABOUT: antipsychotic drugs

antipsychotic drugs stories: 9 news summaries

(Newser) - Mental health experts have lost touch with the benefits of old-fashioned insane asylums, where patients once enjoyed a sense of community and jobs like cleaning and farming, Oliver Sacks writes in the New York Review of Books. Touching on a new book of Christopher Payne photographs called Asylum—which offers... More »

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schizophrenia • antipsychotic drugs • mental illness • asylum • mental hospital

Antipsychotic Drugs Triple Health Risks in Elderly

Dementia research finds even brief use is dangerous

May 27, 08 8:53 AM CDT
(Newser) - Elderly dementia patients given antipsychotic drugs, even briefly, are three times as likely to end up hospitalized or dead within a month, new research has found. The study looked at 40,000 elderly Canadians, half of them in nursing homes, and found that the drugs increased the risk of... More »

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elderly • dementia • antipsychotic drugs • nursing homes • Zyprexa • Alzheimer's Disease

US Drugging Foreigners for Deportation

More than 'last resort,' practice violates international standards

May 14, 08 1:40 PM CDT
(Newser) - The US government injects hundreds of illegal immigrants with dangerous psychotropic drugs to keep them sedated while being deported, the Washington Post reports. The so-called "pre-flight cocktail" often leaves detainees so incapacitated they need a wheelchair to get onto the plane. Used far more often than the "last... More »

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antipsychotic drugs • deportation • illegal immigration • immigrant

Lynne Spears: Manager Drugged, Abused Britney

Pal Sam Lufti 'claims to control everything'

Feb 5, 08 4:55 PM CST
(Newser) - Britney Spears' manager has been drugging and verbally attacking the singer, her mom said in papers filed to support her application for a restraining order against Sam Lutfi. Lynne Spears says in a document dated Jan. 31 that Lutfi "claims to control everything"—he cut her daughter's phone... More »

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Britney Spears • antipsychotic drugs • Lynne Spears • Sam Lutfi • hospitalization • verbal abuse

Nursing Homes Fight Drug Addiction

Use of anti-psychotics for dementia soars; alternatives sought

Dec 20, 07 1:30 PM CST
(Newser) - Despite known dangers—including an increased risk of death—the use of anti-psychotic drugs to control elderly dementia patients has surged, to an estimated 30% of all nursing home residents. Under pressure to cut back, some homes are experimenting with alternatives, like letting distraught patients do what they want to... More »

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elderly • dementia • antipsychotic drugs • nursing homes

Nursing Homes Misuse Meds to Control Patients

'Off label' antipsychotic use drives up costs, sparks concern

Dec 4, 07 3:05 PM CST
(Newser) - Understaffed US nursing homes are increasingly turning to antipsychotic drugs to control elderly residents, even though most display symptoms of dementia rather than the psychotic disorders the drugs are intended to treat, the Wall Street Journal reports. Such “off-label” usage defies FDA warnings that elderly patients using the... More »

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elderly • dementia • antipsychotic drugs • nursing homes • rehabilitation center • psychosis • eldercare • elder abuse • senior citizens • Alzheimer's Disease

Schizophrenia Drug Offers
New Hope

Works on different brain chemical than
its predecessors

Sep 3, 07 3:58 AM CDT
(Newser) - The first human trial of a new medication to treat schizophrenia that works fundamentally differently from its predecessors has shown promising results, according to this month's Nature Medicine. The drug targets glutamate rather than dopamine, as do other drugs. Scientists have long known glutamate is involved in schizophrenia. More »

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medicine • schizophrenia • pharmaceutical companies • antipsychotic drugs • dopamine • Eli Lilly • glutamate

Psych Drugs Drove Kid Crazy

Careless prescriptions turned shy chess nerd into into belligerent hulk

May 18, 07 9:44 PM CDT
(Newser) - The careless prescription of anti-psychotic drugs, often by psychiatrists who draw pay checks from the companies who make them, has drawn attention in the New York Times recently. Now Ann Bauer, writing in Salon, draws an intimate portrait of the effects of such carelessness on one autistic teenager, who turned... More »

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medicine • health • drugs • psychiatry • schizophrenia • pharmaceutical companies • drug companies • antipsychotic drugs • pharma • doctor

Use of Antipsychotics
For Kids Soars

Payments to psychiatrists from the drugs' makers soar at the same time

May 10, 07 10:23 AM CDT
(Newser) - The Times tackles the growing use of antipsychotic drugs in children, contentious because the drugs are risky and have no approved use for minors. But the trend is also questionable because it coincides with increasing payments to psychiatrists by the companies that market the drugs. In Minnesota, these payments rose... More »

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medicine • psychiatry • drug companies • antipsychotic drugs • children • safety

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