Big Pharmas' heavily promoted atypical antipsychotic medications can be dangerous in elderly patients with significant depression, dementia, or "organic brain syndrome". These poor people can develop associated psychotic symptoms including hallucinations and delusions.
But using such atypical antipsychotic medications (Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel) in elderly dementia patients may be dangerous according to a meta-analysis of 15 other studies. This new analysis found an increased risk of death among patients treated with these medications (118 deaths out of 3,353 treated patients or 3.5%) vs patients taking a placebo (40 deaths out of 1757 placebo patients or 2.3%).
Add this to the CATIE study results and the atypical "gravy train" looks like it's drying up a bit!
http://pharmagossip.blogspot.com/2005/09/catiepsych.html
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