In “Prescription Abuse Seen in U.S. Nursing Homes,” Ms. Lagnado visited the nursing home industry 20 years after the passage of the seminal Nursing Home Reform Act of 1987, which aimed to curb the use of restraints on the frail nursing home elderly. Ms. Lagnado found that while physical restraints had decreased, they had been replaced by a less visible but far more insidious form of chemical restraints-a new generation of drugs known as “atypical antipsychotics.” The drugs’ off-label use had become widespread among the elderly, despite black-box warnings by the Food and Drug Administration warning of an increased risk of death in that vulnerable population.
Ms. Lagnado followed up with “Nursing Homes Struggle to Kick Drug Habit,” a story that showed alternative ways of treating fretful dementia patients, without necessarily resorting to the powerful – and dangerous – antipsychotics.