The risk of polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate drugs in residential care dementia patients: tips from the PharE study.

Aims: The aims of the present study, conducted in two regions of Italy, Calabria and Piedmont, were to assess the use of inappropriate drugs according to the Beers Criteria and to study the possible drug-drug interactions.

Methods: Data were obtained retrospectively from 972 residential care patients between 2016 and 2018. Mean age was 82.4 ± 8.4 years, with a prevalence of women (64.8%). Activities of daily living, instrumental activities of daily living, Mini-Mental State Examination, Cumulative Illness Rating Scale, Neuropsychiatric Inventory Scale and number and kind of drugs were recorded. A classification of potential inappropriate drugs was made according to the Beers criteria. Data were collected through an Excel file able to gather the main information. In the case of suspected adverse event, Naranjo Scale was applied. The study of possible drug-drug interactions was made by Micromedex 2.0.

Results: Functional and cognitive impairments, comorbidities and number of drugs were assessed. The bivariate relationship between number of drugs and glomerular filtration rate assessed by CKD-EPI showed that the higher was the number of drugs used, the worst was kidney function assessment (p = 0.0001). The most frequent inappropriate drugs were anticholinergic drugs, tricyclics antidepressants, long-half-life benzodiazepines, antipsychotics and proton pump inhibitors.

Conclusions: These data are very interesting and show the need for an accurate choice of drugs in elderly people and for starting a wise deprescribing procedure.