I’m not going to tell you the exact reason that I’ve busted into this information and why I am going to be including it in my book on Chicken Soup…but, if you’re astute enough, you might actually be able to figure it out.
In digging around for use of particular types of medications used and wanting to make sure to include some Canadian data in my book, I happened upon a site by the Canadian Institute for Health Information. I found where they broke down the changes in Drug Prescriptions for Canadian Seniors…and it’s actually quite terrifying and this is without just base reference nor how I am associating it to Chicken Soup.
Check it:
As the header says, this is the percentage of seniors prescribed 10 or more drugs, from 2021.
10 or MORE Prescription drugs.
Approximately 1 in 4 people over the age of 65 is on 10 or more prescriptions.
Once you hit 85+, that number increases to 1:3.
What the fuck?
This is troubling enough…but when you scroll through the other information, from 2017 to 2021…the use of Psychotropic drugs in LTC is not just tragic, it’s beyond horrifying.
2/3 Seniors are on Antidepressants.
2/5 are on Antipsychotics.
Actually happy to see that there’s a decline in Benzo use…but 1:5 is just too damn high!
When you consider that over 80% of the total COVID Mortality in Canada came from Long Term Care (and hospice), and you see these types of numbers, can you understand where the true pandemic is?
With this new information, I am working it into a section that I’d already had written…the book is basically done but still going through the editing stages and I am still on target to have this published on Amazon by Monday…when they get it up - who knows. They say it can take up to 35 hours…
Anyways…
Just thought I’d drop an Easter Egg for Chicken Soup on Thanksgiving for ya.
:P
Happy Turkey Day, YakkStackers!
And drug interactions from 10+ medications, let's not worry about that! Phuckers.
Happy Thanksgiving Sheldon!
Absolutely. My 93 year old mother went into long term care due to a stroke, on only ONE medication, for hypertension. Within days she had been put on THREE additional drugs, for hypertension, agitation, and trazodone because she "cried too much". Despite this sedation, and bed alarms, she fell out of bed twice and was hurt. And still cried. During lockdown when I was prohibited from visiting and caring for her in person because of my jab refusal, she got several more including morphine and midazolam. When I finally got in to visit her again in Dec. 2022 I was shocked at her deterioration and suffering. They had gaslit me for months about her decline and all I had was Skype calls twice a month, with her being a zombie on frozen screen, and me being told she was just having a bad day. By the time I could care for her daily again, she was too far gone to be helped by quitting the meds. She died in June 2023, a horrible long suffering death.