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Patients with dementia are at excess risk for harms related to polypharmacy, such as falls and impaired cognition. Polypharmacy among dementia patients in nursing homes is well described, but less is known about medication burden in community-dwelling people with dementia. In this study, researchers used a national dataset of more than 800 million outpatient visits to compare medication use in older patients (age, ≥65) with or without dementia.
Among patients with dementia, 72% were prescribed ≥5 medications (vs. 44% of patients without dementia), and 43% were prescribed ≥10 medications (vs. 20% of patients without dementia). Patients with dementia were more likely to be prescribed all major classes of medications, even in adjusted analyses.…