Abstract

Antipsychotic drugs are often used to manage the behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia. However, the UK Committee on Safety of Medicines issued a warning in March 2004 advising that the atypical antipsychotics - risperidone and olanzapine - should no longer be used for this indication because of an increased risk of ischaemic stroke. But now a population based retrospective cohort study of over 32000 older adults with dementia has showed no significant difference in risk of ischaemic stroke in those receiving atypical antipsychotics compared with those receiving typical antipsychotics. Thus the increased risk of stroke is not avoided by prescribing typical antipsychotics. BMJ, 330, 445–8.

Interventions for hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy at birth are usually disappointing. So it is not surprising that selective head cooling was not neuroprotective in a mixed population of infants with neonatal encephalopathy — the findings of a randomised trial on 234 term infants. However, there