Anderson et al. - JAMA Intern Med (2023)
Anderson et al. - JAMA Intern Med (2023)
TL;Dr.: In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, Anderson and colleagues studied the impact of a dementia diagnosis on long-term medication usage in older community-dwelling adults. The researchers matched 266,675 adults aged 67 and older with incident dementia to an equal number of controls based on several factors, including baseline medication count. In both groups, the mean age was 82.2 and 67.8% of participants were female. Results revealed that after diagnosis, dementia patients saw a greater increase in the use of central nervous system (CNS)-active medications, such as antipsychotics, antidepressants and antiepileptics, and a modestly greater decline in the use of anticholinergic and most cardiometabolic medications compared to the controls. One year post-diagnosis, 75.2% of patients in the dementia cohort were using five or more medications. The study’s authors noted that these findings highlight potential opportunities to reduce risky polypharmacy.