COFAR blog

A group home administered an inappropriate and unnecessary anti-psychotic drug to an intellectually disabled woman and increased the dosage by 500 percent last year, according to the woman’s sister.

The 57-year-old woman, who we are referring to as C.J. for privacy reasons, developed tardive dyskinesia after being administered the anti-psychotic drug, Latuda, for nine months, according to her sister, Ellen O’Keefe, who is also an advocate for her.

The staff of the Canton-based group home also left the woman alone on two occasions last June and in January of this year in apparent violation of regulations of the Department of Developmental Services (DDS). The group home is operated by Delta Projects, Inc., a corporate provider to DDS.

In one instance, C.J. was admitted to a hospital for treatment of pneumonia after she was left alone by the staff in the residence, O’Keefe said. She was later admitted to the same hospital for treatment of symptoms of the tardive dyskinesia, her sister said.

Tardive dyskinesia is a serious disorder that caused further cognitive impairment in C.J. and involuntary, repetitive body movements, O’Keefe said. She said her sister has also begun to need a walker. O’Keefe, at COFAR’s suggestion, reported the use of the medication on C.J. to the Disabled Persons Protection Commission (DPPC).

O’Keefe said C.J., who has moderate intellectual disability, can’t read, but has very good communication skills.

Last week, O’Keefe and her family moved C.J. to a new group home run by a different provider, South Shore Support Services. O’Keefe said she was not offered an option by DDS of placing C.J. either in a state-run group home or a residence closer to her family; but the family accepted the placement DDS offered because they wanted C.J. removed from Delta Projects’ care as soon as possible.

C.J. had lived for about four years in the Delta Projects group home. The increasing dosages of Latuda were prescribed by Carine Luxama, a nurse practitioner with Nova Psychiatric Services in Quincy, a subcontractor to Delta Projects.

Ellen O’Keefe (left) and C.J.  C.J.’s apparently inappropriate placement on an anti-psychotic medication in her group home last year apparently resulted in tardive dyskinesia, a serious side effect.

According to records in the case, Luxama first prescribed a dosage for C.J. of 20 mg per day of Latuda in March 2019, and then periodically upped that dosage to 120 mg by November.  In December, at O’Keefe’s insistence and that of another of C.J.’s sisters (who has asked to be referred to by her first name, Nancy), Luxama agreed to discontinue the medication.

Luxama, who I reached last Wednesday (February 26), declined comment on her role in prescribing the Latuda medication for C.J., saying she is prevented from discussing the matter due to patient confidentiality.

According to Wikipedia, Latuda is used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — mental impairments that can produce delusions, hallucinations, and extreme mood swings. In addition to tardive dyskinesia, serious side effects of Latuda may include neuroleptic malignant syndrome, a potentially life-threatening reaction; an increased risk of suicide, and high blood sugar levels.

Newsweek magazine reported in 2015 on a study in the British Medical Journal showing that anti-psychotic medications were being “grossly over-prescribed” to people with intellectual disabilities. In the study of 9,135 people, 71 percent “did not have the kind of serious mental illnesses the drugs were designed to treat.”

“All along, we had no idea that Latuda was in fact an anti-psychotic medication,” O’Keefe said. “We believed it was in the same class of anti-depressant medications she had always been prescribed by her previous psychiatrists.” 

In 2015, O’Keefe signed a health care proxy statement on C.J.’s behalf, which gave her the authority to make all health care decisions for C.J. and “to give consent to any medical procedures, including treatment with anti-psychotic medication.” However, O’Keefe said that she never gave informed consent to the Latuda that C.J. was placed on, or to its increased dosages.

I have received no response to emails I sent seeking comment on the case to several Delta Projects staff on February 20 and February 25, including to John Pallies, Delta Projects president and CEO.

Family disputes diagnosis of delusions

In her “psych medication” case notes, Luxama wrote on November 1 — some seven months after first prescribing the Latuda — that C.J. was experiencing hallucinations and delusions, and was “having conversations with people no one sees.”

However, O’Keefe strongly disputed that C.J. has ever been delusional, and said she had never previously been diagnosed as psychotic. She said C.J. frequently engages in “self talk,” a coping mechanism for many people with intellectual disabilities. Her self-talk, O’Keefe said, has sometimes been misinterpreted by group home staff as delusional behavior.

O’Keefe said C.J.’s mood swings have largely been the result of her unhappiness with the lack of work activities offered in her day program in recent years. (COFAR has reported that many former participants of DDS sheltered workshops have continued to experience a lack of work opportunities after the workshops were shut down by the state as of 2016.)

In 2014, C.J.’s then long-standing primary care doctor at Brigham & Women’s Hospital described her as suffering from “generalized anxiety disorder” and panic attacks resulting from “being far from her family, worrying about her mother’s health, and not having access to a peer group with whom she can interact and be active.” Anxiety disorder and panic attacks do not necessarily involve delusions or other forms of psychosis.

In her case notes prior to November 1, Luxama did not mention any psychotic or delusional behavior on C.J.’s part. In her notes dated March 25, when she first prescribed Latuda, Luxama wrote only that she was prescribing it for “mood swings.”

While anti-psychotic medications are sometimes used to treat non-psychotic anxiety disorder, at least one psychiatric study warned that:

…the side effect burden of some atypical anti-psychotics probably outweighs their benefits for most patients with anxiety disorders. The evidence to date does not warrant the use of atypical anti-psychotics as first-line monotherapy or as first- or second-line adjunctive therapy in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Latuda falls into the class of what are known as “atypical” or “second-generation” anti-psychotics. The study added that:

…some patients with highly refractory anxiety disorders may benefit from the judicious and carefully monitored use of adjunctive atypical anti-psychotics. A careful risk-benefit assessment must be undertaken by the physician, on a case-by-case basis, with appropriate informed consent.

However, O’Keefe said she and Nancy, who is also an advocate for C.J., didn’t know that Latuda was an anti-psychotic medication until O’Keefe received a notice in December from Medicare stating that C.J. had been approved in November for another drug, Ingrezza. That sparked her curiosity, she said, and she looked up Ingrezza and found out it is used to treat tardive dyskinesia. Tardive dyskinesia is known to be caused by anti-psychotic medications.

O’Keefe said Luxama also did not disclose that C.J. was being treated with Ingrezza for tardive dyskinesia, and the group home staff did not respond when O’Keefe asked about the Ingrezza on three occasions in early December.

O’Keefe believes the continually increasing dosages of Latuda caused the tardive dyskinesia disorder, which was exacerbated by a final 50 percent increase in the dosage from 80 mg to 120 mg in mid-November. She said that last increase was not disclosed to her family by the group home until almost a month after the fact.

Left alone twice

During the period in which C.J. was losing cognitive functioning, she was left alone twice by the staff in her group home. In the first of those instances in June, she had pneumonia and was admitted to a hospital for treatment after a visiting nurse not associated with Delta Projects found her seriously ill on a couch in the residence.

C.J. was left alone in the residence for a second time in late January.

DDS Commissioner says leaving C.J. alone was “not acceptable”

O’Keefe reported the first incident in which C.J. was left alone in the group home to DPPC, and reported the second incident directly to DDS Commissioner Jane Ryder. O’Keefe cc’d COFAR in her January 31 email.

In a February 7 email in response to O’Keefe and to COFAR, Ryder maintained that “leaving an individual home alone is absolutely not acceptable and DDS has taken immediate and appropriate action.” 

Ryder said staff at Delta Projects “have been terminated as a result…and DDS has increased oversight and monitoring of the Delta residences.”  She added that DPPC was contacted “and a thorough investigation of the matter will be conducted.”

Ryder did not respond to an email I sent to her on February 20, asking for comment about the medication issue.

C.J. on a family outing.

Inappropriate placement on anti-psychotic medication

O’Keefe told COFAR she was surprised to find out in December that C.J. had been placed on an anti-psychotic medication because C.J. is not psychotic and was not diagnosed as such by two other psychiatrists who have cared for her in the past. She said she was never prescribed that class of medication before.

On December 7, 10, and 20, O’Keefe sent three separate emails to Kelley Hegarty, director of residential supports at Delta Projects, asking why C.J. was prescribed a medication that was causing her to have symptoms of tardive dyskinesia. She said Hegarty didn’t respond to any of her emails.

On December 20, after first learning at C.J.’s annual physical that Luxama had raised her prescribed dosage of Latuda to 120 mg from 80 mg, Nancy emailed Luxama, saying that at that physical, she noticed that C.J.’s “whole demeanor, body language, and ability to communicate were greatly impaired.”

“Who ordered this drastic change (in medication), when, and why?” Nancy asked in the email. According to Nancy, C.J. was exhibiting “multiple, troubling side effects” such as rigidity, hand shaking, psychomotor impairment, loss of balance, stiffness of arms and legs, dark colored urine, and flat affect in her face.”

Nancy asked that all of C.J.’s medications be reviewed and that “serious consideration be given to lowering the dosage of Latuda with a goal of slowly tapering her off this medication and eliminating the known side effects that this drug causes.”

Some two weeks after Ellen began inquiring about the Latuda and its apparent side effects, Nancy finally received a response on December 20 from Hegarty of Delta Projects. Luxama was out of the office that week, but Hegarty said she had been able to reach her and that Luxama had “agreed” to decrease C.J.’s dosage of Latuda from 120 mg to 60 mg per day. 

On December 27, Tori Petti, Delta Projects residential manager, provided O’Keefe with a timeline of C.J.’s Latuda dosages. O’Keefe said she and Nancy had insisted on the timeline after discovering that the dosage had been increased from 80 mg to 120 mg without their knowledge.

O’Keefe said the last increase in the dosage of Latuda resulted in a two-week stay for C.J. in January at Milton Hospital where she needed physical and occupational therapy related to her tardive dyskinesia symptoms.

According to Petti’s timeline, Luxama first prescribed a dosage of 20 mg per day of Latuda starting on March 25, and raised that dosage on May 6 to 60 mg because C.J. was “appearing ‘more disorganized and paranoid.”

Then on November 1, Luxama increased the prescribed dosage of Latuda to 80 mg and then to 120 mg on November 14, “due to increased anxiety, mood swings, irritability, paranoia, delusions, and aggressive panic attacks,” according to Petti’s timeline.

O’Keefe, however, later challenged those assessments of C.J.’s behavior, stating in a January 14 email to Luxama that “no reasonable examples of this behavior were cited in your notes.”

The real problem, O’Keefe maintains, was that C.J. was experiencing negative side effects of increasing dosages of an inappropriate medication. “The Latuda was causing an alarming decrease in her cognitive awareness and physical endurance,” O’Keefe said. “She became more docile and passive so Delta staff could handle her more easily and suppress her independence.”

O’Keefe said that on December 27 and January 3, she sent emails to Luxama, seeking her rationale for the final increase in the Latuda dosage to 120 mg. She said she got no response until January 7, when Luxama emailed her and seemed to place responsibility on the Delta Projects staff for not having informed O’Keefe and Nancy of the November dosage increase.

“Being new to (C.J.)’s care team, it was my understanding that (Delta) staff would be communicating the outcome of appointments with all involved parties, and that I would be available to answer any questions or concerns anyone might have,” Luxama stated in the January 7 email.

But while Luxama said she would be available to answer questions and concerns, O’Keefe said Luxama didn’t respond to her follow-up email with further questions on January 14.

In that January 14 email to Luxama, O’Keefe said she and Nancy believed Luxama was relying on assessments of C.J’s mental state by non-clinical staff in her group home and day program. O’Keefe said that C.J. was “very unhappy” because her day program had “practically stopped offering her enclave work (and) there is nothing ‘meaningful’ for her to do.” C.J.’s mood, Ellen told COFAR, “was largely the result of her environment, not because she had mental illness.” 

Referring to Luxama’s alleged reliance on the group home and day program staff assessments in prescribing the Latuda, O’Keefe’s January 14 email added:

The individuals who support (C.J.) day-to-day and made these ‘clinical type of evaluations’ about her behavior do not truly understand the repercussions in their ‘choice’ of words they used in describing (C.J.), and in our opinion this is a very dangerous practice. Why didn’t you ever elicit our input?  When we started this relationship, you agreed to a team approach – including input from Nancy and I who are also her advocates.

Meanwhile, Luxama’s agreement to reduce the Latuda dosage in December apparently did not result in a reduction in C.J.’s symptoms of tardive dyskinesia, at least in the short term.

On January 8, C.J. was taken by ambulance to Milton hospital for testing, according to an email to O’Keefe and Nancy from Petti. “We believe there is a neurological issue with C.J. as her cognitive abilities continue to decline,” Petti’s email added.

In her January 14 email to Luxama, O’Keefe stated that When C.J. was admitted to Milton Hospital, “the emergency doctor noted she was ‘highly medicated’ and inquired about the anti-psychotics she was taking as her cognitive ability was so impaired.” O’Keefe added in her email that the ER doctor “also noted she (C.J.) had trouble moving her jaw and couldn’t speak.  Are you aware that she has had accidents due to incontinence now? We have since learned that this is also one of the adverse side effects of Latuda.”

The day before, O’Keefe stated in a January 13 email to Luxama that “we want her OFF that medication now.” (Emphasis in the original.) Nancy also sent a similar email to Luxama and cc’d DDS officials, making the same request to discharge C.J. from the Latuda immediately. “She (C.J.) does not like the ‘way it makes her feel’ nor does she like the many negative side effects she has had to suffer through,” Nancy’s email stated.

That same day, Luxama did respond to Nancy, stating in an email that she was “sorry to hear she (C.J.) is not liking how the medication makes her feel and will send an order to the residence to discontinue the medication effective immediately. Thank you for reaching out.”

O’Keefe said C.J. is still suffering from the severity of Latuda’s side effects even though she has not been taking it for over a month. She said that in addition to needing a walker, C.J. now has difficulty with fine motor skills and has hand tremors. 

Violations of regulations

We are concerned that the prescription and administration of Latuda to C.J. violated DDS regulations, which state that no medication may be used without informed consent or “in quantities that interfere with the individual’s habilitation.” Habilitation refers to  services and supports that help DDS clients keep or improve skills and functioning for daily living.

In addition, the regulations state that medication “shall not be used by programs…for the convenience of staff or as a substitute for programming.”

It also appears that the inappropriate administration of Latuda to C.J. caused serious physical injury to her, which constitutes abuse under DPPC’s enabling statute. Serious physical injury is defined in DPPC regulations as including “harmful symptoms resulting from the use of medication or chemicals without informed consent or appropriate authorization.”

Left alone for first time in group home

In June 2019, a visiting nurse who was treating C.J. for pulmonary disease arrived at her group home and found her very ill in the residence on a couch. According to O’Keefe, the nurse, who is not associated with Delta Projects, said the only Delta Projects staff member in charge of the clients told her she needed to leave to drive another client to work.

O’Keefe said the Delta staff member made the assumption it was okay to leave C.J. even though it was DDS policy that a residential staff member must always be present. When the visiting nurse completed her scheduled visit with C.J., she needed to leave to see her next client, but did not want to leave C.J. alone. O’Keefe said the nurse found that C.J. was becoming increasingly lethargic and dehydrated.

O’Keefe said that after the nurse waited for over an hour for the Delta staff member to return, “she became exasperated and worried about CJ’s well-being,” and called O’Keefe.   

O’Keefe said that when she arrived at the group home, “I immediately took the nurse’s advice and didn’t wait for the Delta staff member to return because it was obvious my sister needed immediate medical attention.”  She took C.J. to Milton Hospital where she was admitted for dehydration and pneumonia. She was placed on an IV for 3 days.

In an email to O’Keefe on June 27, Colleen Mulligan, DDS area director, stated that she was requesting that Delta Projects “train/ re-train staff on (C.J.)’s medical needs…to ensure that this does not happen again.” Mulligan’s email added that, “At a minimum, the morning staff should have called the main office/Delta on-call person if they did not know what to do. They should not have left her…”

Nearly four months later, O’Keefe said, she received a call from a DDS investigator who had questions about the June incident. “After several questions,” O’Keefe stated in an October 25 email to her sister Nancy, “she (the DDS investigator) “came to the consensus that C.J. should be in a group home with nursing oversight, which I explained Delta does not have.”

Left alone for second time

But the June incident did not mark the last time C.J. was left alone in her group home. It happened again on January 31, O’Keefe said in the email sent that day to DDS Commissioner Ryder.

Once again, it appears DDS regulations were violated by the group home. It appears that the violations were of regulations stating that providers of residential supports must assure the presence of staff whenever an individual is present in the home.

“We are shocked and horrified that DDS would continue to contract with an organization such as Delta Projects who have proven over and over again their inability to provide safe care for our family member,” O’Keefe stated in the email to Ryder. “Agencies like Delta Projects are entrusted with caring for society’s most vulnerable population and DDS is responsible to ensure they are in compliance.”