Thousands of Alzheimer’s sufferers being prescribed antipsychotic-medication are at risk of death, according to a study being reported in The Lancet Neurology.

 

For the three-year long study, Clive Ballard, of the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King's College London and colleagues followed 165 patients aged 67 to 100 years who suffered from moderate to severe Alzheimer’s disease in Britain.

 

Half of the participants were prescribed anti-psychotic drugs including Risperdal, Thorazine and Stelazine on regular basis while the other half was given a placebo.

 

The researchers noted that 39 patients in the group taking antipsychotic drugs died after a year compared with 27 in the placebo group. After two years, the group being assigned to antipsychotics had 46 percent patients still alive as compared to 71 percent of patients in the other group. At the end of the study, only 30 percent of the group on drugs were alive versus 59 percent of the control group.

 

“For the vast majority of Alzheimer's patients, taking these drugs is probably not a worthwhile risk. Would I want to take a drug that slightly reduced my aggression but doubled my risk of dying? I'm not sure I would,” Ballard said.

 

Alzheimer’s is a terminal and degenerative disease for which there is no known cure. The most commonly symptom is memory loss, as well as difficulty to remember recently learned facts. Sometimes, the condition could not be diagnosed for years. The best way to reduce the risk of dementia is to eat a balanced diet, to exercise regularly and to give up smoking and drinking, which influence the development of the Alzheimer’s.