Simon Wallace

The Sunday Star-Times’ series on the use of anti-psychotic medication in New Zealand’s rest homes brings to light the important issue of the increasing number of people of all ages with dementia.

Currently there are approximately 17,000 residents living in aged residential care facilities (or rest homes) with a disease diagnosis of dementia.

Of these, around 4300 are in secure dementia care.

If we look out to 2025, on current projections, the numbers are set to increase at an alarming rate – those people in a rest home with a diagnosis of dementia will increase to 20,000 and there will be more than 5000 requiring secure dementia care.

Go out even further to 2030, and the projections are that as many as 27,000 New Zealanders in rest homes will have dementia and nearly 7000 will be in secure care.

These numbers don’t include the many thousands of Kiwis living in their own homes with the disease and are testimony to a rapidly ageing population.

There is no question that a range of anti-psychotic medicines are being used to manage dementia-related behaviour, but they are used by clinical staff reluctantly as a last resort and administered to just a small number of residents whose actions can be upsetting and sometimes dangerous to others.

At the same time, our rest homes will make every effort possible to consult with families before the use of such medication, so they are aware of the side-effects.

For the majority of those people in our care there is no need for the use of antipsychotic medication. At a practical level, the New Zealand Aged Care Association, which represents more than 90 per cent of the nearly

Simon Wallace is the chief executive of the Aged Care Association.