Medications to modify at-home behavior of Alzheimer's patients.

Benzodiazepines are used often in elderly, anxious patients with or without dementia. Clearly efficacious and relatively safe, benzodiazepines should be considered the first-line drugs of choice to treat anxiety associated with Alzheimer's disease. "Second-generation" antidepressants, although considerably more expensive than the tricyclics, are of significant benefit in the elderly, primarily because of extremely low anticholinergic side effects.