Abstract
Background: The care of older people with dementia is often complicated by physical comorbidity and polypharmacy, but the extent and patterns of these have not been well described. This paper reports analysis of these factors within a large, cross sectional primary care dataset.Methods: Data was extracted for 291,169 people aged 65 years or over registered with 314 general practices in Scotland, of whom 10,258 had an electronically recorded dementia diagnosis. Differences in the number and type of 32 physical conditions, and the number of repeat prescriptions in those with and without dementia were examined. Age-gender standardised rates were used to calculate odds ratio (ORs) of physical comorbidity and polypharmacy.Results: People with dementia, after controlling for age and sex had on average more physical conditions than controls (mean number of conditions 2.9 vs. 2.4; p
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 33-39 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Age and Ageing |
Volume | 46 |
Issue number | 1 |
Early online date | 13 Oct 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 13 Jan 2017 |
Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)
- Co-morbidity
- Multimorbidity
- Dementia
- Alzheimer's disease
- Polypharmacy