Anti-Depressants Sure Can be Depressing!

“We’re having trouble controlling him”.

“She just isn’t sleeping well at night”.

“They keep trying to wander”.

Caregivers and medical folks observe these behaviors all the time in assisted living. Probably in family homes also when families are taking care of an elderly loved one. When they have these issues, the caregiver often turns to a doctor or other professional for help.

The response most of the time? An anti-depressant, anti-anxiety or anti-psychotic medication.

Seroquel. Lorazepam. Trazodone. Haldol. Citalopram. Mirtazapine.

These are some of the medications I see on a new resident’s medication list all the time when they come into my assisted living homes.

Assisted living residents are not alone. About 17% of Americans are on anti-depressants. That’s about 1 in every 6 people. Pretty depressing (Ok I’ll stop with that pun).

The science on the effectiveness of anti-depressants seems to be mixed.

Regardless, I often see medical people use them to just calm people down in assisted living. These elderly people have too much energy or are a problem for caregivers.

I totally understand caregiver burnout. Trying to care for multiple people with dementia can be challenging at times to say the least.

It’s just sad that we turn to these drugs so quickly to fix a problem. Especially when many of these drugs have some serious side effects. For anti-depressants those include:

• Nausea

• Diarrhea or constipation

• Insomnia or drowsiness

• Anxiety or irritability

Problems that don’t make a caregivers job any easier.

Anti-anxiety medications can cause confusion or memory loss. Not the best side effect for someone with dementia.

Anti-psychotic medications can contribute to metabolic syndrome. Things like increased blood sugar, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. You know - those problems that increase your chances for dementia.

So what can caregivers do if they don’t drug their loved ones?

Well exercise seems like a good place to start..

A meta-analysis of a 218 randomized controlled studies in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) seems to think so. I notice a decrease in anxiety with residents over time after they work with our personal trainers on a regular basis. Of course I have a small sample size.

The BMJ had a much larger sample size and was much more scientific. Notice that SSRI’s alone helped less than pretty much all forms of exercise.

The other avenue is diet. There are abundant case studies of people resolving their depression and anxiety through a ketogenic diet.

Two prominent psychiatrists, Dr. Georgia Ede and Dr Chris Palmer, wrote books on the power of diet in improving psychiatric issues.

So why don’t we emphasize diet and exercise over pills? Because diet and exercise is harder. The best solutions in health usually are.

Yet are pills really a solution? It sounds like often you have to take pills to cover side effects of other pills. You don’t have that problem with good food or exercise.

In the long run it actually seems easier to have people eat well and work out. We all just need to convince others of it.