Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Somnolent Wasteland in American Seniors

Studies reveal use of psychotropic drugs by senior American has doubled in the last ten years.  Moreover, the incidence of polypharmacy (i.e. taking multiple drugs at once) has shot up as well.  (RT:  Number of US seniors on multiple psychotropic drugs doubles over decade)

The number of retirement-age Americans being prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs without a recorded mental health diagnosis has increased, despite government warnings against over-prescribing such medications, a new study has found.

Between 2004 and 2013, the number of older Americans taking three or more psychiatric medicines ‒ known as “polypharmacy” ‒ doubled from 0.6 percent of doctor visits to 1.4 percent, even though half of those patients had not been diagnosed with a mental health disorder, the study published Monday in the medical journal JAMA Internal Medicine revealed.

Extrapolated to the US population over the age of 65, that would mean an increase from 1.5 million annual doctor visits a year involving seniors taking three or more psychiatric drugs to 3.68 million doctor visits.

- RT

Ed:  you damn hypocrite!  You're blown out on reefer 90% of the time!

What's your boggle, angry man?  I'm not the one who went to sleep.  You may disagree with the things I write but someone was at least awake and aware long enough to write them.

By the way, let's go with stoned 100% of the time since it's extremely unlikely that it ever wears off unless I run out of it altogether.

The point to this mention is that I smoke the ganja but it's all I do unless you want to stretch it to say caffeine and nicotine are psychotropic drugs as well.  If psilocybin were around then I might consider it but I wouldn't take anything else even after taking many types of drugs in my life.  Even if any medicine is prescribed I'll question it since I won't take any SSRI drugs (i.e. Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor otherwise technically-known as 'pecker wreckers').


Say there, Doc, ever since this SSRI, my tallywhacker just wobbles and, what's more, I don't care.

Doctor Feelgood:  that's ok.  We have got something for that.

I'll bet you do.

Note:  that conversation isn't far off one which really happened.  As I say, I won't take SSRI drugs but there are many more reasons; that's just one of the bad side-effects.


As to what the psychiatrist had, Yohimbe bark was the recommendation.  If you're looking for some bone food, apparently that's the stuff.  I don't know if it works because, well, I don't care.


Here's an observation from another shrink:

“The rise we saw in these data may reflect the increased willingness of seniors to seek help and accept medication for mental health conditions – but it’s also concerning because of the risks of combining these medications,” he said in a statement. “We hope that the newer prescribing guidelines for older adults encourage providers and patients to reconsider the potential risks and benefits from these combinations.”

- RT

Yah, right.


No-one takes multiple psychotropic drugs for the purpose of mental health, Sigmund; they do it to get wasted.

Sigmund:  insanity is rational in a world gone mad!

Tell you what, Siggy:  you stick to pushing pills and spouting bumper stickers but we will be moving along.


You know the racket with Big Pharma marking up psychotropic drugs such as Prozac by outrageous percentages.  The shrinks can't absolve themselves of responsibility after they loaded America's children with Ritalin like they were distributing Polio vaccine.  The kids are bored out of their fucking minds so, yep, it's the only answer:  drug them.


You also know how it goes with Old Geezers who fall into this polypharmacy situation since they spend as much time as they can temporarily dead while the rest of the time they're just waiting to do it again.  One method which addicts people quickly is the combination of alcohol and Vicodin.  There's a whole lot of that happening and they go incoherent almost immediately.


The cheerful aspect is y'all have managed to dodge that situation or you would not likely be reading this now.  Scoff if you like as I consider myself to have dodged it as well but I don't want to dawdle with the matter of whether there is any somnolence in the ganja; it's not my experience with it.

Now you have the problem of waking up the sleepers or just letting them go.  You seem to have found some twisted peace so bon voyage.

Dunno, mates, but you know it's a deep problem in the country made all the deeper by how much shrinks push the crap and how much Big Pharma manufactures of it.


There really is a cheerful side to it since you all still look for things like this.


It's wisteria and my ol' Mother had wisteria growing just about everywhere we lived although likely this would have satisfied her.  Now I have fulfilled the dream.

So saunter yourself over to the bench and sit to breathe the perfume for a while.

Ed:  and take a nap?

As you will, my brother (larfs).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to see if there is any correlations to the increase and being a resident of an assisted living program.
Maybe it is used the same way they use ritalin as a quick easy babysitting tool to make them easier to handle

Unknown said...

I didn't see the original paper so it's tough to tell since news media will only post the sexy bits and there's never quite enough information. I think it was paregoric they used at one time in orphanages to quiet the children so that kind of behavior isn't new but seeing so much of it is shocking.

Unknown why the confusion in the shrink about using multiple psychotropic drugs since freaks knew it all along. When someone takes multiple drugs at once, that person isn't trying to get high but rather get dead.

Anonymous said...

No I know many people with both mental health issues and addictions. They need to fix the MH before they have a chance at recovery and there are quite a lot with prescription cocktails to get that under control then wean off as the addiction is under control. Then starting working on tne root issues.
Many times once the two are sorted out therapy is successful and they need nothing going forward.

Unknown said...

I know you're talking from ground-level engagement with this and only a fool would argue with that. In fact, a whole lot of fools need to be listening to what you say.