Doctors are needlessly doling out powerful anti- psychotic drugs to thousands of patients, experts warn.People with learning disabilities, dementia and autism are being given the drugs as a ‘chemical cosh’ to control their behaviour, research shows.Anti-psychotics should normally be used to treat mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
But a study published in the British Medical Journal last night reveals that 71 per cent of people with learning difficulties who are prescribed the drugs have no history of severe mental illness.
The findings will fuel growing concerns that the nation has become ‘over-medicalised’ and that thousands of patients are suffering harmful side effects as a result. Use of the drugs as a chemical restraint to alter the behaviour of vulnerable patients is particularly worrying.
Scandalous treatment of vulnerable and disabled people was highlighted with the exposure of shocking abuse of residents at the Winterbourne View care home near Bristol in 2011.
Source: Patients with no history of mental illness needlessly given anti-psychotic drugs | Daily Mail Online
