TITLE: Potentially inappropriate prescriptions of antipsychotics for patients with dementia
AUTHORS: Manuel Machado, Jorge  Machado Alba, Luis Valladales-REstrepo

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<div class = "text-blocks"><div class = "text-block"><span style = "font-weight:bold;">Potentially inappropriate prescriptions of antipsychotics for patients with dementia</span></div><div class = "text-block"><div class = "justify" style = "text-align:justify"><span style = "font-style:italic;">Background/objectives:</span><span>Dementias are neurodegenerative and progressive diseases of the central nervous system. The objective of this study was to determine the frequency of potentially inappropriate prescriptions of antipsychotics in a group of patients diagnosed with dementia in Colombia.</span></div><style>
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							</style></div><div class = "text-block"><div class = "justify" style = "text-align:justify">Design: A cross-sectional study.</div><style>
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							</style></div><div class = "text-block"><div class = "justify" style = "text-align:justify">Setting: A population database for drug dispensing of outpatients in Colombia.</div><style>
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							</style></div><div class = "text-block"><div class = "justify" style = "text-align:justify">Participants: All patients with a diagnosis of dementia in the database. </div><style>
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							</style></div><div class = "text-block"><div class = "justify" style = "text-align:justify">Measurements: Potentially inappropriate prescriptions of antidementia drugs, antipsychotics agents were identified. Descriptive statistics and bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed.</div><style>
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							</style></div><div class = "text-block"><div class = "justify" style = "text-align:justify"><span style = "font-style:italic;">Results:</span><span> A total of 11372 patients with dementia were identified; 66.6% were women, and the mean age was 80.5 ± 9.6 years. Alzheimer's disease was the most frequent diagnosis (76.6%). A total of 69.0% of patients received antidementia drugs. A total of 37.1% of patients received some antipsychotic, especially atypical antipsychotics (31.0%). Increased age, being treated with memantine, simultaneously presenting with anxiety, depression, and psychotic disorders, and concomitantly receiving anticonvulsants, bronchodilators and benzodiazepines were associated with a greater probability of being prescribed antipsychotics.</span></div><style>
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							</style></div><div class = "text-block"><span style = "font-style:italic;">Conclusions:</span><span> More than one-third of patients with dementia received antipsychotic prescriptions, which are considered potentially inappropriate because they can worsen cognitive decline and favor the occurrence of adverse events.</span></div></div>

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