Drugs used for psychiatric disorders.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 8101629.
- No licence information is recorded for this record.
- Because redistribution is not established, this page shows the abstract only. Follow the links below for the full text.
Abstract
Psychiatric disorders are common in the elderly. Antidepressants are probably underprescribed. In recurrent depression, lifelong prophylaxis may be required. Benzodiazepines can aggravate cognitive impairment and cause falls; they should not be used for chronic insomnia. Antipsychotic drugs are useful for the treatment of delusions and hallucinations but are less effective for disturbed behaviour in dementia sufferers. There are no satisfactory drugs for treating dementia at present, but promising palliative treatments for Alzheimer's disease are under trial.