The Imperative for Person-Centered Dementia Care: Focus on Assessing and Working With Long-Term Care Residents Rather Than Percentage of People on a Medication

We appreciate the attention Drs Kale, Gitlin, and Lyketsos bring to CMS's singular focus on antipsychotic use in those long-term care (LTC) residents with dementia and behavior disturbance. As the authors point out, these universal behaviors are themselves associated with poor health outcomes including mortality, injury to peers and staff, and other undesirable outcomes. We agree with their premise: the focus on this 1 class of medication without assessing the resident and the entire situation is both misguided and leads to the use of less effective, more risky, and less evidence-based interventions.