LETTER: Alzheimer’s Day highlights time for change

It was also a time to highlight the inadequate and abusive “treatments” put out there as solutions for those suffering with dementia. From the cradle to the grave, the population is being bombarded with dangerous psychiatric drugs. That includes the use of antipsychotic drugs on those diagnosed with dementia.

In 2009, a Department of Health report linked use of the “chemical cosh” to the death of 1,800 care home residents per year, drugs they should not have been prescribed.

If an elderly person cannot remember where their shoes are or whether they have paid the electricity bill, psychiatry claims he or she is manifesting symptoms of dementia. Underlying this is an entire foundation of fraudulent “diagnostic” criteria, specifically the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the mental diseases section of the International Classification of Diseases where psychiatry has corralled any mental impairment as a “mental illness”.

The reality of life in many nursing homes today is often far from the stylised image of communicative, interactive and interested elderly residents living in an idyllic environment. Instead, the elderly in care appear submissive, quiet, somehow vacant, a sort of lifelessness about them, perhaps blankly staring or deeply introspective and withdrawn, often brought on by the use of dangerous psychiatric drugs. This abuse is the result of the psychiatric profession manoeuvring itself into an authoritative position over aged care. From there, it has perpetuated the tragic but lucrative hoax that aging is a mental “disorder”, a for-profit “disease” for which they have no cure, and which requires extensive and expensive psychiatric drugs.

The end result is that, rather than being cherished and respected, too often our senior citizens suffer the extreme indignity of having their power of mind nullified by psychiatric drugs or their lives simply brought to a tragic and premature end.

It’s time for change. Common sense and decency should dictate that the last thing a fragile, anxious or vulnerable elderly person needs is the additional physical and mental stress associated with psychiatric drugs.

BRIAN DANIELS

NATIONAL SPOKESMAN CITIZENS’ COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS