The analysis which was conducted of studies that involved 23,000 people who had dementia has found that outdoor activities as well as massages are more effective for the treatment of dementia than drugs.
The authors have been calling on the administrators and policymakers to prioritise the treatments without drugs for the symptoms of dementia which are behavioural as well as psychological.
The disease is said to affect 50 million people across the world with close to 3/4th of them experiencing the neuropsychiatric symptoms which include agitation, anxiety and aggressive behaviour.
These symptoms also cause misery to those who are giving care and therefore the quality of life of both the patient and that of the caregiver suffers considerably in comparison to the ones who do not have these symptoms.
In spite of the fact that drugs like antipsychotics and antidepressants may increase the risk of breaking bones, falling or dying, the authors have noted that the rate of prescription of these medicines remains high.
The authors have said that the understanding of the comparative efficiency of the medicines as against those who had not taken medicines has not been possible because of the limited number of head to head trials which could be conducted for both the routes.
To fill the gap of knowledge, the team of others had gone for an analysis of data which had been collected from an analysis of multiple studies.
Their haul had taken 163 studies which covered as many as 23,143 patients with dementia of a level of severity which was moderate. This meant that the average age of the patients had been 70 in almost all of the studies with 65% of them living out of a nursing home.