Increased Mortality in Elderly Patients with Dementia: Elderly patients with dementia treated with atypical antipsychotic drugs are at an increased risk of death compared to placebo. Analyses of thirteen placebo-controlled trials with various atypical antipsychotics (modal duration of 10 weeks) in these patients showed a mean 1.6-fold increase in the death rate in the drug-treated patients. Although the cause of death were varied, most of the deaths appeared to be either cardiovascular (e.g., heart failure, sudden death) or infectious (e.g., pneumonia) in nature.