Scandal of the Alzheimer’s victims given ‘zombie’ drugs

The controversial drugs, which are often used to sedate patients, have been described as a "liquid cosh" by one expert and the study has provoked a call for stricter limitations on their use.

Professor Clive Ballard from King's College, London, investigated the effects of anti-psychotic medication, which is given to nearly half of dementia patients in care homes at an annual cost of £80million.

He found that those who had been given it were nearly twice as likely, over a four-year period, to die than those who were not prescribed it.

Professor Ballard said: "People who weren't taking the anti-psychotic drugs had a 62 per cent chance of being alive by the end of the study while the people who were taking the drugs had only a 36 per cent chance of being alive.

"For the vast majority of people there are no benefits, and considerable harm, from using these drugs. There were clearly deteriorations in some of the core symptoms, particularly their ability to communicate effectively."

Many elderly people only mildly affected by dementia but prescribed anti-psychotic drugs are reduced to a "zombified" state by them, says the Alzheimer's Society, which has demanded an end to their blanket use.

The study is featured in a Panorama investigation to be shown on BBC1 tomorrow.

It tells the story of Cheryl Byrne, who spent the past three years battling to have her father, Eric Hollingworth, taken off anti-psychotics.

Mr Hollingworth, who died recently aged 81, was diagnosed with dementia in 2003 and from the outset was prescribed anti-psychotics.

Upset by the rapid deterioration in his health, Cheryl resorted to secretly filming his condition.

The footage shows her father slumped in a chair looking, as she describes, "like a zombie".

He doesn't utter a word and gets up and down from his chair 17 times in ten minutes.

Mrs Byrne, a retired bank worker, said: "I never thought he was the same again after he'd been prescribed those drugs. Something was lost. They robbed him, physically and mentally, of what capacity he did have."

Mr Hollingworth was given a cocktail of drugs after barricading himself in a ward.

Last night Tim Kendall, deputy director of research at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: "I can't see the justification for this wide range of drugs. It is a liquid cosh."

Panorama, BBC1 Monday, 8.30pm.