Newsletter

Caregivers and Deprescribing2025-11-21

November is National Caregiving Month. Family caregivers are unsung heroes. They help, advocate for, and oftentimes sacrifice aspects of their life for a loved one suffering from mental health issues.

One big issue I have seen over the last decade is the necessity of deprescribing. A lot of the patients referred to me clinically are on multiple medications, at high doses, often at loggerheads with each other, medicating the side-effects of each other, in a virtual arm race. Their family caregivers see the devastation first-hand, and are proactive about seeking new solutions and options.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. With the advent of blood biomarkers testing for mental health, the process of assessing people objectively, and matching people to the right (and fewer) medications and nutraceuticals, is gaining clarity (mindxsciences.com).

Some medications cannot be stopped abruptly, have to be tapered slowly, particularly those that have a short half-life (last a short time in the body), as they lead to unpleasant and even dangerous withdrawal symptoms. For clinicians and patients, adding the right medication while doing the sequential taper of the old unnecessary medications may make things easier and smoother. Having a family caregiver alongside the patient for this journey is important.

As we are entering an era of more precise, personalized, and preventive mental health, it is likely that the overall excessive use of medications will decline, and we will see societal and individual improvements as a result of that. Lifestyle and psychological interventions have a powerful effect on gene expression and biology, and should become the primary approaches. MindX Sciences has developed tools for that as well- the Life x Improve Digital Testing, and the Life x Mind app.