Psychotropic Medication Pros And Cons

Psychotropic medications are drugs that can help prevent certain mental health symptoms. Antianxiety, antidepressant, antibipolar, and antipsychotic drugs are all forms of psychotropic medications (Homer, 60). The most common antianxiety drug, benzodiazepines (BZD), helps reduce anxiety that most patients experience (Homer, 139). There’s a controversy that psychotropic medications are overprescribed. Over prescription of psychotropic medication, such as BZD, can be detrimental to one’s health. The article “Correlates of Potentially Inappropriate Prescriptions of Benzodiazepines among Older Adults,” measured data from an economic and social affairs survey (ESA). The article reported that there’s records of over prescription of BZD in older patients. About 43% of people have reported being overprescribed BZD drug after taking the ESA survey (Préville et al., 2012, p. 314). These patients usually experience problems with stability, memory, and concentration from a long term use of BZD. The survey reported that two-third of the respondents used BZD 12 months preceding the survey. They also claimed that they used a mean dose of 6.1 mg of BZD daily (Préville et al., 2012, p.316).
Préville et al. (2012), reported that prolong use of BZD, given to …show more content…
For instance, it can help reduce anxiety, induce sleep, and also contribute to muscle relaxation (Baldwin et al., 2014). In 2014, a randomized control trial was conducted using BZD, the results showed that short term use of BZD, usually in acute treatment can help minimize symptoms of anxiety (Balwin et al., 2014). According to Baldwin et al. (2014), BZD should be prescribed under two conditions; if the anxiety symptoms are very severe or when the patient can't function in daily activities. If the short term use of BZD does not work to treat these anxiety symptoms, then it would be acceptable to use a long term treatment of