Management of agitation in nursing home patients - Treatment options

Agitation in demented nursing home residents is a major clinical problem with which patients, families and staff are required to cope. Agitation may be secondary to a variety of psychiatric, environmental and medical problems, and thus attempts must be made be clarify aetiological issues before initiating a treatment plan. Treatments for agitation are imperfect, and clinicians should be prepared to work through several to find the best for a given patient and clinical situation. Cognitive/behavioural/environmental treatments have the advantage of few or no adverse effects and no drug-drug interactions. Some of these define rather basic nursing management techniques for coping with agitated older adults, while others attempt to diminish specific behaviours. The use of pharmacological interventions should be reserved for those patients in whom other measures have been unsuccessful. While the range of medications that have been used to treat various kinds of agitated behaviours is large, there are few double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in this area and fewer still in nursing home populations. No one class and no one medication has been identified as a treatment of choice. While we work to find the aetiological mechanisms of irreversible forms of dementia, and the possible treatments for the underlying disorders, the challenge to develop more effective medications with better adverse effect profiles is before us.