1. [Patterns of antidemential drug use in a group of patients from Colombia].
- Author
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Calvo-Torres LF, Bernal-Cobo R, Trujillo-Quintero PM, Gaviria-Mendoza A, and Machado-Alba JE
- Subjects
- Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Colombia, Cross-Sectional Studies, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Cholinesterase Inhibitors therapeutic use, Dementia drug therapy, Donepezil therapeutic use, Drug Utilization statistics & numerical data, Galantamine therapeutic use, Memantine therapeutic use, Receptors, N-Methyl-D-Aspartate agonists, Rivastigmine therapeutic use
- Abstract
Introduction: The benefits of pharmacological therapy with anti-dementia drugs are not yet fully demonstrated and there is even a lack of publications describing their use profile. The present work sought to determine the prescription patterns of anti-dementia drugs in a Colombian population., Patients and Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study. Through a systematized database of 3.5 million affiliates to the Colombian health system, patients with uninterrupted dispensing of anti-dementia drugs between August-October/2016 were selected. Sociodemographic, pharmacological and comedication variables were analyzed. The costs of the therapies were estimated from the reference price of the medicines., Results: We identified 8372 patients with a mean age of 79.5 ± 8.7 years and 65.3% (n = 5471) were women. The most widely used medication was rivastigmine (69.6%), mainly in transdermal presentation, followed by memantine (31.4%). In general, the average dose administered per day was lower than the defined daily dose. Only 568 patients (6.7%) used combination therapy. 84.3% of patients (n = 7061) used some additional medication and 54.2% (n = 4535) had another neurologic medication. The cost per 1000 inhabitants/day of rivastigmine was 3.47 USD and for memantine 0.30 USD., Conclusion: Patients with anti-dementia drugs are using them at doses lower than those defined and they present an important frequency of comorbidities and comedications.
- Published
- 2019
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