Antipsychotic Intervention

Reviews published up to 2004 did not consider whether interventions were effective only during the intervention or whether the effect lasted longer; the settings in which the intervention had been shown to be effective (e.g. in the community or in care homes); or whether the intervention reduced levels of agitation symptoms and was preventive or treated clinically significant agitation (Livingston, 2014).
In past years, psychiatric medication was routinely used to treat agitation, but now tends to be discouraged since benzodiazepines and antipsychotics increase cognitive decline (Bierman, Comijs, Gundy, Sonnenberg, Jonker, and Beekman, 2007), and antipsychotics cause excess mortality and are of limited efficacy (Maher, Maglione, Bagley, Suttorp, Hu, Ewing, et al., 2011). …show more content…
This suggests that CBT in an adapted form could be used with adult populations with dementia. Paukert et al. (2010) developed Peaceful Mind, a CBT intervention for anxiety and dementia, finding reductions in anxiety, depression and carer distress in a study with eight individuals. This study, among others (Spector et al., 2012), suggest that CBT in people with dementia is feasible, although specific approaches to treating agitation are