SSRIs considered to have the best safety profile in the elderly are citalopram, escitalopram, and sertraline.

What is the safest anxiety medication for seniors?

Buspirone is an anti-anxiety drug that has been shown to be effective for older adults. Benzodiazepines, another anti-anxiety drug, are effective but should be prescribed carefully to older adults because of risk of memory impairment, unsteadiness, and falls.

What is the best SSRI with least side effects?

Overall, citalopram appears to be the best-tolerated SSRI, followed by fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, and fluvoxamine. The latter 2 drugs are associated with the most side effects and the highest discontinuation rates because of side effects in clinical trials.

Is Zoloft OK for the elderly?

Sertraline is generally well tolerated in elderly patients with major depressive disorder and lacks the marked anticholinergic effects that characterise the adverse event profiles of tricyclic antidepressants (TCAs).

Are antidepressants effective for elderly?

Second, antidepressants are effective in treating depression in older populations, although they are not always as effective as we and our patients would like. Third, antidepressants have side effects and risks, some of which can be observed acutely while others may be longer-term consequences.

Which SSRI is best for anxiety?

The antidepressants most widely prescribed for anxiety are SSRIs such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, and Celexa. SSRIs have been used to treat generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Is Paxil safe for elderly?

However, elderly patients may be more sensitive to the effects of this medicine than younger adults, and are more likely to have hyponatremia (low sodium in the blood), which may require caution and an adjustment in the dose for patients receiving paroxetine.

What is the safest antidepressant for the elderly?

SSRIs considered to have the best safety profile in the elderly are citalopram, escitalopram, and sertraline. [16] These have the lowest potential for drug-drug interactions based on their cytochrome P-450 interactions.

What is the safest SSRI?

Citalopram and escitalopram have been considered the safest among the SSRIs with respect to potential for liver injury [41].

What are the top 5 antidepressants?

When the researchers checked which depression drugs were tolerated the best, these topped the list:

• Celexa (citalopram)
• Lexapro (escitalopram)
• Prozac (fluoxetine)
• Trintellix (vortioxetine)
• Zoloft (sertraline)

Is Remeron safe for elderly?

Mirtazapine is clearly better tolerated than tricyclic agents and is appropriate for some geriatric patients. Mirtazapine may be especially helpful in those who need a sedating agent or in patients who need to gain weight. An increase in appetite was reported in 17 percent of patients taking mirtazapine.

Is Lexapro better than Zoloft?

A 2014 study published in International Clinical Psychopharmacology suggested that Lexapro may be more effective and better tolerated than Zoloft or Paxil. Lexapro has different binding site interactions which may lead to better efficacy and tolerability.

Is Prozac good for seniors?

Gurvich and Cunningham state in their article1 on psychotropic drugs in nursing homes that fluoxetine (Prozac) is not recommended in the geriatric population because of its longer half-life of active metabolite relative to other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), resulting in the potential for a longer

Is Lexapro good for elderly?

They said antidepressants like Lexapro, made by Forest Laboratories Inc and known generically as escitalopram, may be useful as a new treatment option for older adults with generalized anxiety disorder, a disabling condition that can also cause muscle tension, insomnia and fatigue.

Is Celexa safe for elderly?

In studies, Celexa was as effective and safe in people ages 65 and older as in younger people. However, older people who take Celexa may be at greater risk for a side effect known as hyponatremia, in which there is not enough salt in the fluid surrounding cells in the body.

Which mood stabilizers are preferred for use in the geriatric population?

Lithium remains the treatment of choice for bipolar mania in elderly patients. Although lithium has greater proven efficacy than other mood stabilizers with respect to treating and preventing manic episodes and reducing suicidal behavior¹⁷ there is a dearth of good studies of its use in the elderly population.