Prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs for people with dementia increased during the pandemic

Chia-Yi Hou
·2 min read

Story at a glance

  • People with dementia may be prescribed antipsychotic drugs to aid with behavioral and psychological symptoms.

  • New research finds that people with dementia were prescribed these types of drugs at a higher rate following the beginning of the pandemic.

  • Data show that prescription rates stayed high through late 2021.

Prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs increased for people with dementia substantially in the initial months of the pandemic and remained elevated in 2021, according to a study published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Antipsychotic drugs may be prescribed to people with dementia to help with behavioral and psychological symptoms. Although, the authors note, the effectiveness of the drugs in treating those symptoms are modest.

“Although specific causes for the increase in the rates of antipsychotic drug prescribing may vary and cannot be identified by the current data, the increase may in part be associated with both a deterioration in behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia and reduced access to care following the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions,” write the study authors.

“These findings suggest that the pandemic disrupted the care of people living with dementia and that the development of intervention strategies is needed to ensure the quality of care,” they continue.

In the analysis, the researchers combined data from six countries: the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Italy and South Korea. More than 857,000 people with dementia were identified among eight databases.

When comparing 2020 to corresponding months in 2019, the team found that the rate of prescribing antipsychotic drugs for patients with dementia increased in all countries in the study. The authors note there was also a decrease in dementia diagnoses in the same period, which may have been due to disruptions in access to care.

The largest increases compared to 2019 were observed in May 2020 in South Korea and June 2020 in the U.K.

In the U.S., a time series analysis of Medicare data showed that there was an immediate increase in prescription rates after the introduction of restrictions related to COVID-19.

In some countries, the rates fluctuated but remained higher than the four-year average.

A few of the databases had data available for 2021 and showed that the prescription rates remained heightened in that year as well.

In Germany and South Korea, the increases were observed into early 2021. Drug prescribing rates were also high toward the end of 2021 compared to previous years in one of the U.S. databases in the study.

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