Use of Antipsychotic Drugs In Nursing Homes Declining, Report Says

DATE: February 9, 2015

Fewer long-stay nursing home residents are being treated with antipsychotic drugs, a report from a dementia care group said.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found that in the third quarter of 2014, 19.2 percent of long-stay nursing home residents received antipsychotic medication, the report said. The 2014 figure is 19.4 lower than the rate reported for the third quarter of 2011, when 23.9 percent of long-stay nursing home patients received antipsychotic drugs, the report said.

The National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes prepared the report and released it Feb. 6. The dementia care group is a public-private coalition under the direction of the CMS.

“The use of antipsychotic medication as an attempt to modify behaviors associated with dementia is not supported by the research studies,” David Gifford, the senior vice president of quality and regulatory affairs at the American Health Care Association (AHCA), a nursing home trade group, said in a Feb. 9 statement. “These medications may be appropriate for individuals suffering from schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, but in the elderly living with dementia, they can increase the risk of complications, resulting in poor health outcomes and higher costs,” he said.

AHCA Reaction
“The success of our profession in achieving a nearly 20 percent reduction in the use of antipsychotics over the last three years means that we have helped to improve the quality of life for thousands of individuals with dementia residing in our nation’s skilled nursing centers,” Gifford said.

The data showing reduced rates of antipsychotic drug use among long-stay nursing home residents “are further evidence of the success of the Quality Initiative our Association embarked on three years ago,” Mark Parkinson, the AHCA’s president and chief executive officer, said in the statement.

New Goal
The AHCA now wants to further lower the use of antipsychotic drugs in nursing homes. In February 2012, the group’s statement said, the AHCA set a goal to reduce off-label use of antipsychotic medications by 15 percent.

“Now that we have exceeded our initial objective, we have set even more ambitious goals to further decrease the use of antipsychotics in skilled nursing centers an additional 10 percent nationwide by the end of 2015, and another 5 percent by the end of 2016,” Parkinson said.

Other types of nursing homes have also reduced the number of residents being treated with the drugs. For instance, the CMS and the AHCA in September announced that skilled nursing care centers reduced the off-label use of antipsychotic drugs by 15.1 percent between the end of 2011 and 2013 (184 HCDR, 9/23/14).

See the original article on the Bloomberg BNA website.

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