The over-medication of NDIS recipients is under scrutiny after the watchdog found more than 170,000 Australians were given unauthorised sedation.

Disability advocate Paula McGowan will testify to the Disability Royal Commission urging the government to restrict the use of chemical restraints.

Paula’s son Oliver, a high-functioning autistic 18-year-old and Paralympian in training, died after being given psychotropic medication his mother told Ben Fordham he did not need.

“Oliver himself told the doctors ‘Don’t give me these drugs, they mess with my brain’ … but they administered it, and his brain swelled so badly we were told it was bulging out the base of his skull.”

She told Ben Fordham children as young as five are being given “shut-up drugs” unnecessarily.

“I thought it was bad in the UK, [but] when I came to Australia I [was] … absolutely shocked at the amount of people who were prescribed off-label, hugely dangerous chemical drugs.”

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Image: Supplied