Image of male nurse pushing senior woman in a wheelchair in nursing facility

Canadian researchers urged reconsideration of how drugs are administered to nursing home residents with dementia shortly before death.

They found that 86% received at least one “medication of questionable benefit” — including statins, anti-dementia drugs and antiplatelet agents — in their last 120 days of life. 

The percentage dropped to 66% in the residents’ last two weeks, and 45% in the final week. But it should be even lower, said researchers from the Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto.