Do Drugs Induce Dementia and Delirium?

by Smile, Friday, April 03, 2009, 15:25

According to Public Citizen, there is a number of drugs that contribute to the development of such diseases as dementia and delirium, and the older patients are especially vulnerable. Public Citizen has published an article on WorstPills.org where the situation is described in detail.

It turned out that senior people have very high risk of development of drug-induced mental illnesses and their doctors very often fail to notice them. Public Citizen has made a number of tests and found out that some drugs, mostly common anti-depressants and pain relievers, 136 in total induce a number of forms of dementia. However, the process of development of the disease can be stopped if symptoms were found out and intake of the inducing drug was terminated or the dosage of the drug was changed.

The researchers have proved the mostly wide-spread characteristics of the old age such as failing memory and difficulty in thinking are very often cause by the drugs. It was suggested by Public Citizen that older brain is simply more vulnerable.

Unfortunately, most health care providers do not recognize mental handicap as a side effect of drugs and that is why many people continue to suffer from the diseases that could be easily avoided. The president of Public Citizen highly recommends that after starting the intake of some of those 136 drugs, seniors and their family should monitor the process of treatment carefully and if some symptoms of cognitive impairment come up, the treatment should be reconsidered.

Besides, Public Citizen have found out that seniors are also susceptible to such disease as delirium – an acutely disturbed state of mind that occurs in fever, intoxication, and other disorders and is characterized by restlessness, illusions, and incoherence of thought and speech.

Public Citizen has published the whole list of 136 drugs that induce dementia and delirium. This list includes: benzodiazepines, opiates, tricyclic antidepressants, cortiocosteroids, fluroquinolone antibiotics, and many other medicines.

To learn more about these drugs and the affect they have on the health of senior people, read the newsletter Worst Pills, Best Pills. The article on the dementia and delirium that provides all necessary information on inducing drugs will be available for free for a couple of weeks. Apart from this article, the website offers a lot of other interesting and useful information.

WorstPills.org is a non-profit organization that provides unbiased information on different drug-related topics from a number of trusted sources. The Food and Drug Administration trusts WorstPills.org and allows the website to publish some info on drugs that have not passed all necessary studies yet and are considered dangerous for people's health. The organization has warned public about a number of drugs that later on were banned by the FDA.