Antipsychotic drugs may not address the root of the problem (Image: BSIP, Laurent/Science Photo Library)
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IT WILL come as no surprise to relatives. Doctors are resorting to powerful psychotropic drugs, such as antipsychotics and antidepressants, to calm patients with intellectual disabilities – even if they don’t have a history of mental illness.
“Sedating people may dampen the challenging behaviour, but won’t identify the source of the frustration,” says Rory Sheehan of University College London.
Sheehan and his colleagues collected data from 571 doctors’ surgeries in the UK over five years. They identified 33,016 people with intellectual disability, 63 per cent of whom were prescribed some kind of psychotropic drug by the end of the study, despite just 34 per cent of the group being diagnosed with a mental illness.
Specifically, 9135 people were given antipsychotic drugs, although 70 per cent of them didn’t have a record of the kind of severe mental illness, such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, for which these drugs are usually prescribed. Those with a record of “challenging behaviour” were more than twice as likely as those without to receive the medication (BMJ, DOI: 10.1136/bmj.h4326).
“It’s possible the doctors are prescribing them to manage the behaviour, but there’s very little evidence that these drugs work in these situations,” says Sheehan. A person may be banging their head on the table because they have an ear infection, for example, in which case, an antipsychotic drug wouldn’t solve the problem.
A person may be banging their head because they have an earache. Antipsychotics won’t help
“Fundamental changes must be delivered, addressing a culture of ‘chemical restraint’ and replacing it with individualised behaviour support,” says Viv Cooper at the UK Challenging Behaviour Foundation. “We’ve heard from families time and time again about their loved ones being given high levels of antipsychotic medicine,” says Dan Scorer at Mencap. “In many cases they report serious side effects.”
This article appeared in print under the headline “The wrong drugs”