Psychotropic drug use in aged care facilities: a reflection of a systemic problem?

Looi, Jeffrey C L; Macfarlane, Stephen

doi:10.5694/mja13.10469

Topics

Health services administration

Mental disorders

Pharmacological therapy is only part of the answer to improving mental health

Summary of the issues surrounding psychotropic drug use in residential aged care facilities (RACFs)

1 Research Centre for the Neurosciences of Ageing, Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, Australian National University Medical School, Canberra, ACT.
2 Aged Psychiatry, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC.
3 Caulfield Aged Psychiatry Service, Melbourne, VIC.

Correspondence: jeffrey.looi@anu.edu.au

Acknowledgements:

We thank Daniel O’Connor, Roderick McKay and Gerard Byrne, executive members of the Faculty of Psychiatry of Old Age, Royal Australian New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) for discussing with us the issues covered in this article.

Competing interests:

We are both executive members of the Faculty of Psychiatry of Old Age, RANZCP. The views expressed in this article are our own and not those of the RANZCP. Stephen Macfarlane has received speaker’s honoraria from Eli Lilly, Janssen-Cilag, Pfizer and Lundbeck, and a Lundbeck Fellowship to attend a series of seminars on dementia held at the Lundbeck Institute in Skodsborg, Denmark, in 2009.

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