Is
this Medscape article the first recognition from within the Medical
Establishment that pharmaceutical drugs can, and do, cause Dementia?
Will anyone take notice? Or act to protect patients?
“Drug-related cognitive impairment is common in routine practice and should be considered in any individual receiving drug therapy who presents with cognitive symptoms. These effects can occur at any age and are associated with a wide range of medications. The long-term use of benzodiazepines, antidepressants with anticholinergic properties, and antipsychotics has been associated with cognitive decline, particularly in older adults. Although these impairments may be preventable through baseline cognitive assessment and regular monitoring, they are often mistaken for age-related or neurodegenerative conditions and therefore remain underrecognized”.
I have been making the link between dementia and pharmaceutical drugs for the last 20+. This is my article, dating back to 2009, “Is Dementia Caused by Pharmaceutical Drugs?. The rise and rise of dementia has, after all, been mirrored almost exactly by the rise and rise of the consumption of prescribed drugs. And, as I have often pointed out, the known side effects of many drugs include memory loss, attention deficits, confusion, disorientation in time or space, and other well-known symptoms of dementia.
So here I will do little more than to repeat what the Medscape article says. Medscape, after all, is part of the Conventional Medical Establishment. It is not usually critical of it. And it describes itself as “the leading online global destination for physicians and healthcare professionals worldwide, offering the latest medical news and expert perspectives; essential point-of-care drug and disease information; and relevant professional education and CME”.
The Medscape article says that it undertook a literature review that examined “the clinical features and drug classes involved, highlighting the potential long-term consequences when these effects are not identified and managed”.
It discovered that“medication-related cognitive impairment is more prevalent than often assumed. Drugs are the leading cause of delirium and may account for up to 30% of cases in hospitalized older adults. Thus, polypharmacy doubles the risk”.
It said that “medication-related dementia accounts for an estimated 2.7%-10% of dementia cases”, and that “earlier studies have suggested that medications may represent the most common cause of reversible dementia, contributing to 28.2% of the cases. With increasing prescriptions and a higher number of medications per person, the burden is likely to be greater”.
It went on to say that “the risk increases sharply with the number of medications prescribed, increasing ninefold in individuals receiving four or more drugs. Polypharmacy affects approximately 29% of individuals aged 65 years or older and nearly 42% of those aged 85 years or older”.
It says that “the severity ranges from mild cognitive impairment to dementia. In some cases, symptoms present acutely as delirium with hallucinations, illusions, or altered perception” and that “these impairments can appear shortly after drug initiation or may develop gradually. Severity often correlates with plasma drug concentration. Symptoms typically improve after dose reduction or discontinuation, although persistence for months or longer has been reported”.
So what pharmaceutical drugs does it implicate as contributing to the ongoing epidemic of dementia? They are exactly the same drugs that I previously outlines, 25+ years ago, here.
“Multiple drug classes have been associated with an increased risk for cognitive impairment, including antiepileptics, antidepressants, antiparkinsonian agents, antipsychotics, lithium, benzodiazepines, opioids, first-generation antihistamines, anticholinergics used for urinary incontinence, proton pump inhibitors, glucocorticoids, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, statins, antihypertensives, and anticancer therapies”.
It gives me little pleasure to say “I told you so”. I am not gloating. After all, it is not something to celebrate. In the intervening years, many millions of people have suffered dementia, in all its many forms. Their suffering has been caused by a medical system that regularly, and routinely, discounts/denies the harm that it does through the drugs it prescribes.
Medscape also refers to a 2023 literature review that assessed the cognitive safety of psychotropic medications in older adults. It “found that individuals with depression who had no baseline cognitive impairment were at greater risk for cognitive decline when treated with tricyclic antidepressants or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, particularly paroxetine, for at least 6 months compared with those not receiving these medications. These findings suggest that medications, rather than depression itself, may contribute to the decline, potentially through their anticholinergic effects”.
It continues. “Benzodiazepines, especially those with a long half-life of at least 20 hours, have also been associated with cognitive decline” and that “most studies have reported significant cognitive decline in older adults treated with antipsychotics, with a risk approximately double that of healthy individuals or equivalent to 1 year of neurodegenerative disease progression. This association has been observed for both conventional and atypical antipsychotics. The combination of antipsychotics with other psychotropic medications has also been linked to cognitive decline in older adults.
So what is Medscapes conclusion? What does it recommend? They suggest a response that appears to be a weak - to the point of being dismissive of the full implications.
“Experts recommend systematic cognitive assessment before prescribing these medications and then regularly throughout treatment. Comprehensive evaluation across multiple domains, ideally conducted by a neuropsychologist, is preferable, such as the Mini-Mental State Examination or the Montreal Cognitive Assessment”.
So drugs that even the conventional medical profession know cause dementia are still to be prescribed - but with more ‘evaluation’ and ‘assessment’! And I suspect that the medical establishment will do even less than this meagre suggestion. All pharmaceutical drugs are known to cause serious patient harm - not just dementia - and rarely if ever is anything done that would avoid future patient harm - other than taking “more care”. This is usually defended by using the (unproven) equation that a drug “does less harm than good”.
The Medscape article was published in 23 March 2026. I expect it to be ignored, forgotten, or even withdrawn! I do not expect Governments, the Mainstream Media, Patient Support Grounds (funded by Big Pharma), or the Conventional Medical Establishment, to take any notice of it. I predict that it will not be drawn to patients, and their families, attention, and that drugs known to cause dementia will continue to be prescribed by doctors.
Life will continue, as before, except perhaps for those people who will be unfortunate enough to suffer from drug-induced dementia.
Such is the power and control exercised by the Pharmaceutical Industry within society.
PS. This article is clearly very critical of the Pharmaceutical Medical Establishment. So it is likely to be censored/deleted by Blogger. However, it will still be on my new Substack forum.
https://safemedicine.substack.com/p/pharmaceutical-drugs-can-cause-dementia.
Please follow me, or take up a free subscription, there.
