14 DAY TRIAL // Though doctors love giving them away like candy, prescription drugs may not be the most effective approach to treating delusions in demented individuals. A new research suggests that behavioral therapy is better suited for this application.
Writing in the journal Psychiatry Research, expert Jiska Cohen-Mansfield, PhD, says that these delusions oftentimes have a rational basis. Without addressing that, prescribing drugs can do more harm than good, which is why behavioral therapy needs to be the first option.
Most often, patients receive antidepressants, sedatives, hypnotics, or antipsychotic medications, all of which have a wide array of side-effects, and significantly alter the natural chemistry of the brain, PsychCentral reports.
“If you begin to think about these delusions from the point of view of the dementia patient, you begin to understand that their delusions are explainable reflections of the reality they live in,” Cohen-Mansfield concludes.