Drug Guideline for Mentally Retarded

GUIDES FOR TREATING PEOPLE WITH MENTAL RETARDATION TO BE SET

     COLUMBUS, Ohio -- More than 300 physicians, scientists, family members
and other experts in the field of mental retardation will meet at Ohio State
University next month to develop the first-ever guidelines for prescribing
psychiatric medications for the mentally retarded.  

     People with mental retardation are among the nation's heaviest
consumers of psychoactive drugs, such as anti-depressants and anti-anxiety
medications, said Steven Reiss, professor of psychology and psychiatry at
Ohio State and director of the Nisonger Center, the university's primary
center devoted to teaching and research on mental retardation and
developmental disabilities.  

     However, Reiss said, physicians prescribing psychoactive drugs for
these patients are often poorly trained about mental retardation.   

     "On any given day, hundreds of thousands of people with mental
retardation are given psychiatric medications," Reiss said.  "This includes
about half of the people in institutions and as many as 40 percent of those
in large community agencies.  Overmedication and unnecessary sedation are
all too common.  The drugs can cause physical discomfort, which is a special
problem when the patient is nonverbal and cannot alert his or her caregiver."  

     "Plus, the sedation makes it that much more difficult for the person to
learn the skills needed to be released from the institution and improve his
or her quality of life.  The main culprits in all of this are the inadequate
training of health professionals and a lack of medical information on which
they can base their treatment."

     The upcoming conference will address these problems.  The International
Consensus Conference on Psychopharmacology, which will meet June 15 and 16
at Ohio State and will be co-hosted by the Nisonger Center, University of
Cincinnati's Cincinnati Center for Developmental Disorders, and Arc of Ohio
(formerly known as the Association for Retarded Citizens), will include
presentations by 21 working committees on such topics as drug types, past
research, ethical issues and issues of best practice.

     After the conference, the reports of the committees will be compiled
into a handbook of consensus expert opinion on the appropriate use of each
medication for people with mental retardation.  The handbook will be
distributed worldwide.

     "It will be a compendium of current knowledge, best practices, and
needs for training and research," Reiss said.  "We expect that it will be a
major force in providing drug therapy for mentally retarded patients and
reducing inappropriate use and overuse of psychoactive drugs."

     Reiss also expects the conference attendees to call for a greater
federal commitment to training psychiatrists about the special needs of
mentally retarded patients.

     "Currently, only a pittance is being spent to improve the situation,"
he said.  "Only 32 psychiatrists are being trained this year in the entire
mental retardation/development disability training network, less than one
psychiatrist for each state."

     Reiss also expects the conference attendees to call for a greater
emphasis on developing new, non-sedating psychoactive drugs specifically for
patients with mental retardation. 

     "About $4.5 billion in taxpayer money is spent each year on services
for people who are mentally retarded and suffer from mental illness, yet
less than $600,000 of a $55 million federal research program is spent
specifically to find better treatments that might cut these costs
substantially," he said.  "We need to find more effective, cost-saving
medicines.  Our national policy is penny-wise and pound-foolish."

     Once developed, new medications will alleviate mentally retarded
patients' pain and suffering and make it easier for caregivers to serve them
in the community, Reiss said.  However, he said, getting new medications
developed will be challenging.

     "There are significant barriers to developing the needed medications,"
he said.  "Few scientists are conducting the needed research.  The
commercial markets are too small to attract the interest of the
pharmaceutical industry, and the pharmaceutical industry has liability
concerns about the vulnerability of people with mental retardation."  

     "However, at the conference, leading figures in the field will propose
solutions to these barriers, with the hope of hastening the process of
getting new medications researched, developed and marketed."

     The International Consensus Conference on Psychopharmacology is
co-sponsored by the Administration on Developmental Disabilities, the
American Association on Mental Retardation, the American Association of
University Affiliated Programs, the American Psychiatric Association, the
American Psychological Association, the European Association on Dual
Diagnosis, the National Association on Dual Diagnosis, the National
Institute of Mental Health, the President's Committee on Mental Retardation,
the U.S. Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, and The Arc of the United
States -- the nation's largest family organization for mental retardation.
For more information about the conference, call Steven Reiss at the Nisonger
Center at (614) 292-8365 or at home at (614) 885-4114.

                                 #

Contact:  Steven Reiss, (614) 292-8365
Written by Kelly Kershner, (614) 292-8308


[Submitted by: Von Reid-Vargas (ereid@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu)
               
Tue, 9 May 1995 16:11:01 -0400]
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