Nursing homes should be welcoming and comforting havens for people who are unable to live independently.  Unfortunately, some are more like prisons where abuse and mistreatment are rampant.

Staff members at some facilities misuse potent, antipsychotic drugs to restrain residents for the staff’s convenience – an act that amounts to serious nursing home abuse.

A recent report from AARP discusses nursing homes’ abuse of antipsychotic medications. These drugs are FDA-approved for the treatment of severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. They are not approved to make agitated residents easier for staff to handle.

Sedation of Residents

Charlene Harrington of the University of California – San Francisco estimates as many as 1 in 5 nursing home residents are being given antipsychotic drugs off-label, according to AARP. In other words, they are receiving the drugs when they don’t have a medical condition that warrants the use of the drug.

Not only is this a sad situation, it’s extremely dangerous.

The problem, Harrington says, is that some nursing homes are understaffed and workers are undertrained on the dangers of antipsychotics. Further, nursing homes are susceptible to aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies.

Antipsychotics can turn an otherwise outgoing elder into a sedated and lifeless resident. Some nursing home staffers use these drugs to make it easier to manage residents who may be disruptive or high-maintenance.

This is known as “chemical restraint,” as the drugs act similarly to physical restraints such as bed ties or handcuffs.

Nursing home residents who suffer from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are among those most likely to be chemically restrained. In a 2013 interview with New Hampshire Public Radio, Dr. Sandeep Sobti, a geriatric psychiatrist, likened the use of chemical restraints to handcuffing residents to wheelchairs.

Dangers of Chemical Restraints

Now that the dangers of off-label use are recognized, chemically restraining elders should be a thing of the past. Inappropriate drugs can make it difficult for nursing home residents to communicate and move, and they may show a declining interest in self-care, eating and the satisfaction of their most basic needs.

In a report entitled The Legal Aspects of Chemical Restraints Use in Nursing Homes, legal experts  from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law identify the following consequences of chemical restraints:

• Agitation
• Functional decline
• Increased fall risk
• Hypotension (low blood pressure)
• Withdrawal
• Memory impairment
• Movement disorders
• Sedation

Accountability for Abuse

In many cases of abuse by chemical restraints, family members notice that a nursing home resident has a change in attitude or reduced awareness – the resident may seem “out of it.” A dramatic change in a resident’s personality or alertness may indicate that the resident is being given drugs for sedation.

Many drugs, including Risperdal and Zyprexa, carry black box labels from the FDA, specifically warning against their use in elderly patients, particularly those affected with dementia. When nursing home staff members ignore these warnings or are unaware of the potential for harm, they and their employers may be held responsible for the resulting damage.

Nursing home residents are at the mercy of the people who care for them. Caregivers cause needless suffering when they use chemical restraints just to make their work easier.