Study: Nursing Home Residents with Advanced Dementia Receive Medications of Questionable Benefit

According to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine, many nursing home residents with advanced dementia receive medications of questionable benefit when they are near death.

The study's authors examined the prescription records of 5,406 nursing home residents with advanced dementia using a nationwide long-term care pharmacy database linked to the Minimum Data Set. They found that 53.9 percent of the residents received at least one medication of questionable benefit, with Cholinesterase inhibitors, memantine hydrochloride and lipid-lowering agents being the most common. The mean 90-day expenditure for medications with questionable benefit was $816.

There is scant evidence that these medications can benefit people with advanced dementia and they can cause serious side effects.

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