Abstract
Number of persons living with dementia is increasing with population ageing. Currently there are approximately 160 thousand persons living with dementia in the Czech Republic, most of them (cca 75%) living at home and cca 25% in institutions of either welfare or health care type.
Care of persons with advanced dementia syndrome is demanding especially in situations when neuropsychiatric symptoms occur. Appropriate and skilled care, individualized attitude respecting needs and routines of persons with dementia, non-pharmacological interventions etc are the best way how to manage neuropsychiatric symptoms.
However in some situation are these interventions not effective and i tis necessary to consider medication. Antipsychotics are still frequently used in these situation despite the common knowledge of their serious side effects.
Therefore i tis necessary to consider pros and contras and alternative attitudes, state of syndrome progression, comorbidities, trigger factors (pain, dyscomfort) and alleviate them by non-pharmacological or pharmacological interventions. We suggest some principles of careful prescription of antipsychotics in practice, limitation of their use only for these cases in which patients benefit from their prescription