Drugs are widely used to sedate dementia patients. Her sons wanted to keep her off them.

Marjorie Tingley, an 85-year-old dementia patient at Vista Grande Villa in Michigan, was repeatedly sent to the emergency room after altercations with staff, culminating in a 30-day eviction notice after her sons resisted the facility's push to sedate her with antipsychotic medication. She died less than two weeks after moving to a new facility; her sons are now suing Vista Grande for negligence, emotional distress, and wrongful eviction.

The case sits inside a broader, decades-long pattern: despite a 14-year federal campaign to curb the practice, a JAMA study estimates 1 in 4 Medicare beneficiaries with dementia are potentially inappropriately prescribed antipsychotics, and a March inspector general report found 'alarming instances of inappropriate use.' Vista Grande has denied the allegations and calls the recommended drugs 'routine medication,' while a judge has already dismissed the negligence claim on legal grounds ahead of a trial scheduled for next year.

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