A new analysis of studies including nearly 80,000 people aged 60 and older confirms that certain types of widely prescribed drugs, such as antidepressants and sedatives, can increase their risk of falling.
Falls often have serious consequences for older people, such as injuries leading to disability and admission to a nursing home, or even death.
While prescription drugs are recognized as contributing to fall risk among older people --who are likely to be on lots of medications -- discovering just which drugs are the problem is still a "challenge," Dr. Carlo A. Marra of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and colleagues note in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
To update a review of studies on this subject published in 1996, Marra and his team identified 22 studies published between 1996 and 2007 including 79,081 people 60 and older, some of whom lived independently, and some of whom were institutionalized. They analyzed the risk of falling associated with nine classes of drugs.
Three classes turned out to significantly boost fall risk: sedatives and hypnotics, typically prescribed as sleeping aids; antidepressants; and benzodiazepines, which include tranquilizers like Xanax and Valium.
READ MORE @ ABC NEWS
Showing posts with label Psychotropic Drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Psychotropic Drugs. Show all posts
Monday, November 23, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
FDA Eases Rules on Access to Investigational Psychotropic Drugs
The FDA’s new rule on “expanded access programs” would allow pharmaceutical companies to give seriously ill patients broader access to investigational drugs outside of clinical trials. A limited number of expanded access programs were created in the past under sketchy FDA rules; the 2 new allied rules—one on the conditions drug companies must meet to create a program, the other on how they can charge for the drugs—ostensibly give pharma a wider berth. Moreover, psychotropic drugs can be provided under the clarified policy.
When the FDA was considering changes to its policy (in part prompted by a lawsuit), it contended with the issue of whether the use of psycho-tropic drugs fits in the definition of “serious medical condition”—with which a patient must be afflicted before a drug company can make an investigational agent available outside a clinical trial. The health insurance industry made an effort to convince the FDA to exclude mental health conditions from serious medical conditions.
In her comments to the FDA after the agency proposed a rule in March 2007, Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), pressed the agency to include a definition in the final rule that said, “A serious disease or condition is one which is persistent, substantially disabling, progressive, and likely to result in death within 6 to 12 months.” She noted that schizophrenia and chronic depression are among the conditions that “cause disabling health effects and suffering for a period of time without death occurring prematurely or in a matter of months.” AHIP was concerned about exposure of its insurance company members to wide claims from policy holders for reimbursement for expensive, investigational drugs obtained through expanded access programs, which might multiply because of the FDA rule liberalization.
READ MORE @ PSYCHIATRIC TIMES
When the FDA was considering changes to its policy (in part prompted by a lawsuit), it contended with the issue of whether the use of psycho-tropic drugs fits in the definition of “serious medical condition”—with which a patient must be afflicted before a drug company can make an investigational agent available outside a clinical trial. The health insurance industry made an effort to convince the FDA to exclude mental health conditions from serious medical conditions.
In her comments to the FDA after the agency proposed a rule in March 2007, Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), pressed the agency to include a definition in the final rule that said, “A serious disease or condition is one which is persistent, substantially disabling, progressive, and likely to result in death within 6 to 12 months.” She noted that schizophrenia and chronic depression are among the conditions that “cause disabling health effects and suffering for a period of time without death occurring prematurely or in a matter of months.” AHIP was concerned about exposure of its insurance company members to wide claims from policy holders for reimbursement for expensive, investigational drugs obtained through expanded access programs, which might multiply because of the FDA rule liberalization.
READ MORE @ PSYCHIATRIC TIMES
Thursday, October 1, 2009
CORRECTED - US family doctors prescribe most mental health drugs
(Corrects final paragraph to show the FDA did not approve Seoquel's use in children, but an FDA advisory panel)
* Most mental health drugs prescribed by family doctors
* Doctors' role raises concerns about quality of care
Fifty-nine percent of U.S. mental health drug prescriptions are written by family doctors, not psychiatrists, raising concerns about the quality of some treatments, according to a study released on Wednesday.
Researchers from Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration examined 472 million prescriptions written for psychotropic drugs from August 2006 and July 2007.
They found that general practitioners prescribed the bulk of prescriptions in two main categories -- 62 percent of antidepressants and 52 percent of stimulants.
The stimulants were mainly drugs for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. About 25 percent of all stimulant prescriptions examined were written by pediatricians, they reported in the journal Psychiatric Services.
READ MORE @ REUTERS
* Most mental health drugs prescribed by family doctors
* Doctors' role raises concerns about quality of care
Fifty-nine percent of U.S. mental health drug prescriptions are written by family doctors, not psychiatrists, raising concerns about the quality of some treatments, according to a study released on Wednesday.
Researchers from Thomson Reuters (TRI.TO) and the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration examined 472 million prescriptions written for psychotropic drugs from August 2006 and July 2007.
They found that general practitioners prescribed the bulk of prescriptions in two main categories -- 62 percent of antidepressants and 52 percent of stimulants.
The stimulants were mainly drugs for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. About 25 percent of all stimulant prescriptions examined were written by pediatricians, they reported in the journal Psychiatric Services.
READ MORE @ REUTERS
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Current Prescriptions Of Psychotropic Drugs Are Irrational For The Patients But Very Rational For The Big Pharma
UK psychiatrist David Healy has attacked current prescription habits of psychiatrists which are strongly influenced by the pharmaceutical propaganda in the fourth 2008 issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics.
Commenting on a paper by Harvard investigators on the psychology of risk and prescriptions of psychotropic drugs, Healy denounces a real crisis in psychiatry at present. In part this stems from the lack of independent studies. Allied to this is a lack of independent access to what data there are and an unsophisticated interpretation of the data that are available, based on conceptual models that seem increasingly inadequate. It is important that clinicians understand the dynamics that impinge on their judgment as it is almost certainly the case that pharmaceutical companies engineer clinical perceptions based on side effect profiles. The basic company position is that clinicians have no thoughts in their minds other than those put there by us or our competitors, and in order to plant a message or dislodge those of competitors companies employ all their sophisticated means.
READ MORE @ MEDICAL NEWS TODAY
Commenting on a paper by Harvard investigators on the psychology of risk and prescriptions of psychotropic drugs, Healy denounces a real crisis in psychiatry at present. In part this stems from the lack of independent studies. Allied to this is a lack of independent access to what data there are and an unsophisticated interpretation of the data that are available, based on conceptual models that seem increasingly inadequate. It is important that clinicians understand the dynamics that impinge on their judgment as it is almost certainly the case that pharmaceutical companies engineer clinical perceptions based on side effect profiles. The basic company position is that clinicians have no thoughts in their minds other than those put there by us or our competitors, and in order to plant a message or dislodge those of competitors companies employ all their sophisticated means.
READ MORE @ MEDICAL NEWS TODAY
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