Renom-Guiteras A, et al. - The frequency of potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) prescription among older people with dementia (PwD) from eight countries participating in the European study ‘RightTimePlaceCare’ was evaluated. Moreover, the physicians assessed factors and adverse outcomes associated with PIM prescription. Among PwD, PIM use was frequent and was correlated with institutional long-term care, age, advanced morbidity and functional impairment. Furthermore, it appeared to be associated with adverse outcomes. For acid-related disorders, special attention needed to be paid to psycholeptics and drugs.

• The researchers performed this survey of 2,004 PwD including a baseline assessment and follow-up after 3 months.
• For this study, interviewers collected data on age, sex, prescription of medication, cognitive status, functional status, comorbidity, setting and admission to hospital, fall-related injuries and mortality in the time between baseline and follow-up.
• To assess PIM prescription, the European Union(7)-PIM list was used.
• To examine factors and adverse outcomes associated with PIM prescription, multivariate regression analysis was used.

• In this study, 60% of the participants had at least 1 PIM prescription and 26.4% at least two.
• Psycholeptics (26% of all PIM prescriptions) and ‘drugs for acid-related disorders’ (21%) were the PIM therapeutic subgroups most frequently prescribed.
• PwD at higher risk of being prescribed two PIM or more were 80 years and older, lived in institutional long-term care settings, had higher comorbidity and were more functionally impaired.
• The prescription of 2 or more PIM was correlated with higher chance of suffering from at least 1 fall-related injury and at least 1 episode of hospitalisation in the time between baseline and follow-up.