Potentially inappropriate prescribing (PIP) seems to be common among people with dementia, according to new research in the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice, which was presented at the recent RPS Conference in Birmingham.

Researchers analysed the Enhanced Prescribing Database to investigate primary care prescribing during 2013 for people with dementia in Northern Ireland. They assessed appropriateness using the Screening Tool of Older Persons Potentially Inappropriate Prescriptions (STOPP) criteria. Patients included had been dispensed a drug for dementia (donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine, memantine), which acted as a proxy
for the disease. The authors excluded care home residents.

The study included 6,828 patients, 64.4 per cent of whom were female. The mean age was 79.6 years. Initial results suggest that the commonest PIPs were:

• First-generation anti-histamines (9.3 per cent)
• Benzodiazepines prescribed for four weeks or more (11.4 per cent)
• Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and concurrent drugs that reduce heart rate
  (18.7 per cent)
• Anticholinergic or antimuscarinic drugs (25.2 per cent).

Therapeutic duplication was commonest with opioid analgesics (5.1 per cent) and benzodiazepines (3.5 per cent).

Further analyses to determine the overall prevalence of PIP and explore any relationships with polypharmacy, age and sex are planned.

The authors of the research hope that the findings will help develop an intervention to improve medicines management for dementia patients in primary care.

_{International Journal of Pharmacy Practice 2015; Supplement 2:10-11}