Concern over dementia drugs

Doctors in some areas in England are still "inappropriately over-prescribing" anti-psychotic drugs to dementia patients, campaigners said. Daybreak's Helen Drew reports.

Symptoms of dementia may include the following:

• Loss of memory - this particularly affects short-term memory, for example forgetting what happened earlier in the day, not being able to recall conversations, being repetitive or forgetting the way home from the shops. Long-term memory is usually still quite good.

• Mood changes - people with dementia may be withdrawn, sad, frightened or angry about what is happening to them.
• Communication problems - including problems finding the right words for things, for example describing the function of an item instead of naming it.
  

In the later stages of dementia, the person affected will have problems carrying out everyday tasks and will become increasingly dependent on other people.

The term 'dementia' describes a set of symptoms which include loss of memory, mood changes, and problems with communication and reasoning.

These symptoms occur when the brain is damaged by certain diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and damage caused by a series of small strokes.

Dementia is progressive, which means the symptoms will gradually get worse.

How fast dementia progresses will depend on the individual person and what type of dementia they have.

Each person is unique and will experience dementia in their own way.

It is often the case that the person's family and friends are more concerned about the symptoms than the person may be themselves.

Anti-psychotic drugs, also known as neuroleptics or major tranquillisers are very commonly used for a variety of behaviour problems in dementia, including restlessness, irritability and aggression, emotional instability, and loss of inhibitions.

All of these drugs can cause sedation, and a variety of neurological side effects can occur, including shakiness like Parkinsonism, abnormal movements particularly around the mouth and tongue (called dyskinesia), muscle spasms (dystonia) and restlessness (akathisia).

Anti-psychotics are used to manage the psychological and behavioural symptoms of dementia.

These include aggression, agitation, shouting and sleep disturbance.