As we've discussed here previously, there's a hot debate going on over the use of antipsychotic medications in nursing homes to calm down agitated dementia patients. That's spurred, in part, because Medicaid is paying for many of these scripts, spending $5.4 billion on atypical antipsychotics in 2005 alone. As this article notes, critics say that it would be far better to use these funds to hire more staff members to manage demented patients. Article [1]