Unnecessary Use of Tranquillizers in Elderly Patients

Abstract

The evidence that potent tranquillizers are useful in the long-term treatment of elderly patients with dementia in psychiatric hospitals is conflicting.Seager (1955), in a double-blind, controlled trial involving 48 elderly women, 29 of whom suffered from dementia, found a highly significant improvement of social adjustment associated with chlorpromazine therapy. Schulsinger (1961), Exton-Smith (1962) and Post (1963) claimed promazine to be of particular value for agitated elderly patients. Robinson (1959), on the other hand, compared the effects of prolonged administration of chlorpromazine, reserpine, leptazol and a placebo upon 84 senile female patients in a double-blind trial and found no statistically significant improvement associated with the active drugs. Indeed, in the case of chiorpromazine, he found a significant lowering of the level of functioning. Abse and Dahistrom (1960), in a double-blind controlled trial involving 8o patients over 60 years of age with various symptoms (including some with confusion), found that chlorpromazine did not give better results than placebo.