(THINK) Michelle Chen, February 23, 2018 — As the “gray wave†of aging baby boomers crowd into the country’s creaking long-term care system, many of them may unexpectedly end up in nursing home where anti-psychotic medication, rather than comprehensive social and mental health services, have become a standard way for some residential institutions to maintain order.

Yet, according to human rights investigators, anti-psychotic drugs are often administered to residents not with a doctor’s prescription, but the management’s. So-called “chemical restraints†have become a routine “fix†for behavioral problems, such as those who “resist†staff’s orders, or for dementia patients with a habit of wandering off. In reality, deliberately over-medicating elderly patients is not designed to help them as much as to help an overwhelmed workforce of clinicians struggling to care for too many patients with too little time and funding.

But the seemingly efficient solution comes at the expense of seniors’ human rights.

Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/profit-medicine-incentivizes-overmedicating-our-elderly-rather-caring-them-ncna848491