![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2.23989615.jpg\" "\\"Prescription")
Researchers looked at trends in prescribing of medications used to treat depression and anxiety in people with dementia (Peter Byrne\/PA)<\/p>\nThere is an increased risk of death for dementia patients taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications, a new study from Queen\u2019s University Belfast has suggested.<\/p>\n
The study led by researchers from the School of Pharmacy and Centre for Public Health has shown that some medications \u201cmay not always be appropriate\u201d for people with dementia.<\/p>\n
As dementia is associated with age and the proportion of older people aged 65 years and over increases, the prevalence of dementia is also projected to increase.<\/p>\n
It affects more than 55m people worldwide, with an estimated 10m new cases every year.<\/p>\n
Researchers looked at trends in prescribing of medications used to treat depression and anxiety in people with dementia (Peter Byrne\/PA)<\/p>\n
Catherine Sinnamon, lead author on the research and a postgraduate research student from the School of Pharmacy, highlighted that dementia was one of the leading causes of death globally and \u201ccurrently there is no effective treatment for the disease\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is therefore vitally important we look to ways to improve health and quality of life and reduce social and economic costs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople living with dementia often have other medical conditions which means that they are prescribed multiple medications.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes these medicines may not always be appropriate. Our study aimed to uncover how antidepressant medications affect people with dementia to ensure we can provide them with the best treatment and care.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers looked at trends in prescribing of medications used to treat depression and anxiety in people with dementia and explored the association between the use of these medications and the risk of death.<\/p>\n
The team looked at 28,781 people living with dementia from Northern Ireland over a nine-year follow-up period (2012-2020), half of whom died during this time.<\/p>\n
(The findings) underscore the importance of medications being regularly and thoroughly reviewed in people with dementia, whether that be by a GP or a pharmacist, to ensure they are still appropriate and are still needed <\/p>\n
They found that antidepressants were prescribed to 59.2% of individuals who died during the follow-up period, while 44.8% of these individuals were prescribed anti-anxiety medications.<\/p>\n
There was evidence of a slight increased risk of death in people with dementia-prescribed antidepressants and a strong increased risk in those prescribed anti-anxiety medications.<\/p>\n
Heather Barry, principal investigator on the study, said the findings \u201cextend our knowledge and highlight the importance of judicious prescribing for people with dementia.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt further underscores the importance of medications being regularly and thoroughly reviewed in people with dementia, whether that be by a GP or a pharmacist, to ensure they are still appropriate and are still needed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is an increased risk of death for dementia patients taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications, a new study…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2926,103,61,60,17713],"class_list":["post-335481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-dementia","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-place-northern-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}