Posted by yxibow on December 7, 2007, at 4:22:27
In reply to Re: Olanzapine 'side effects' » Babak, posted by Racer on December 6, 2007, at 10:10:59
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> > The program I saw was about the use of antipsychotic medication on people with dementia and it purported to make them worse and having irreversible effects of the brain which is scary to say the least.
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> And there is a huge difference between using anti-psychotics in those with dementia versus using anti-psychotics on those with other sorts of problems. Correlation versus causation: the dementia patients will, sadly, get worse, and that worsening will be irreversible in all likelihood. Are the anti-psychotic medications influencing that at all? If so, are they causing it (very unlikely); contributing to it (possibly); or influencing it in any other way (as like as not, since even aspirin would influence it)? Especially with what's shown on TV, it's important to be very, very skeptical. And none of the information about anti-psychotic use in dementia necessarily applies to anti-psychotic use in any other patient.
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> As far as sleep goes, I'm assuming you've tried Trazodone, and it hasn't worked. In which case, if you can't take anti-psychotics, you can't take hypnotics, and you haven't found help from Trazodone, I think it's time to look into behavioral interventions to improve sleep hygiene. They won't work as immediately, but if medication isn't working for you, that's what's left, and they can be very effective for sleep.
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> Good luck.I would highly agree with this assesment. Causation is not correlation. Now I have various things that have happened to me over time where causation is basically almost correlation but when , no offense to our octogenarians+ on here, but when you are dealing with frailer and sadly memory lost patients, anything could set off them and this is why there is a whole practice of gerontology and I dare say gerontologic psychiatry to deal with the consequences of dosing, reduced dosing schedule for clearance of metabolites on older organs, etc.
I am assuming that you are quite not an nonogenarian with dementia.
Trazodone is a good hammerblow of a drug that will definately knock you out for a while until its sell date is gone and then you have to go back a bit and go up again on the dose if you acclimate to its tiredness since its just an old antidepressant related to Serzone. Do be warned that priapisms can happen although they're usually not life threatening, however if you cannot stop it on your own (no kidding, I stood on my head), you would have to go to the ER. But this is a rare event, I am medication sensitive.
Another good non-habit forming agent is doxepin, unfortunately you acclimate much quicker to it than Trazodone. The good thing is that if you do wake up, you're more likely to go back to sleep again.
And if you're purely using it for sleep, you may have already acclimated to that small of a dose of Olanzapine after time.
poster:yxibow
thread:798912
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071204/msgs/799273.html