I recently heard of a elderly man who had been prescribed antipsychotic drugs to relieve his severe dementia. But after taking these drugs his condition worsened, he couldn’t sleep and he was aggressive. His memory had not improved and his family were terribly distressed from his worsening condition.

Eventually it was decided that their father  would stop taking the antipsychotic drugs and try complementary medicine. Since stopping the antipsychotics  and taking substances derived from plants his condition has improved significantly. He still has dementia and all of the symptoms associated this destructive condition.  But overall he is calmer, he sleeps better and he is more coherent than he was on the antipsychotics, but his memory has not improved. All this happened in a manner of weeks, which means  it is possible that overtime his condition could improve a little more. No-one knows for sure and what will happen in the future, but right now the family can see a difference and feel they have found something practical they can do that is visibility helping their father even if it is just a little. As for the father he knows these substances are good for him and he takes them everyday.

Antipsychotic drugs were never designed to treat vascular dementia symptoms (or Alzheimer’s) and anyone who uses these types of drugs will experience some side effects. The FDA has previously warned that treatment with antipsychotic drugs increases the risk of death among elderly patients with dementia and now a new study confirms that some drugs are riskier than others. Here in Australia , where it is often behind FDA when it comes to revisiting drug prescription guidelines, there is a concern that Antipsychotic drugs are being over prescribed for dementia and the evidence  of the drugs efficacy is according to http://www.nps.org.au “modest” whilst there are serious side effects.

With regard to complementary medicine are several substances with reasonable scientific evidence behind them and they do not have serious side effects and are affordable. I will cover the best researched substances in my next post.