Increased Mortality in Elderly Patients with Dementia Related Psychosis

• Elderly patients with dementia related psychosis treated with atypical antipsychotic drugs are at an increased risk of death compared to placebo.
• Analyses of seventeen placebo controlled trials (modal duration of 10 weeks, largely in patients taking atypical antipyschotic drugs, revealed a risk of death in the drug treated patients of between 1.6 to 1.7 times that seen in placebo treated patients. Over the course of a typical 10-week controlled trial, the rate of death in drug treated patients was about 4.5% compared to a rate of about 2.6% in the placebo group.
• Although the causes of death were varied, most of the deaths appeared to be either cardiovascular (e.g., heart failure, sudden death) or infectious (e.g., pneumonia) in nature.
• Observational studies suggest that, similar to atypical antipsychotic drugs, treatment with conventional antipsychotic drugs may increase mortality.
• The extent to which the findings of increased mortality in observational studies may be attributed to the antipsychotic drug as opposed to some characteristic(s) of the patients is not clear.
• This drug is not approved for the treatment of patients with dementia-related psychosis (See WARNINGS in package insert).