Treatment

What is Deprescribing?

Deprescribing is the planned reduction or stopping of medicines that are no longer helping or may be doing harm, supervised by a prescriber.

Older adults with dementia often take many drugs, some started years earlier for reasons that no longer apply. Anticholinergic medicines in particular can worsen confusion.

It is done gradually and with monitoring, not by stopping things at home.

Why it matters

A medication review is one of the few interventions that can improve someone's thinking within weeks.

Sources

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Related terms

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