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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Prevalence and appropriateness of psychotropic drug use in old age
— results from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE) | | Author(s) | Michael Linden, Thomas Bar, Hanfried Helmchen |
| Journal title | International Psychogeriatrics, vol 16, no 4, December 2004 |
| Pages | pp 461-480 |
| Source | http://journals.cambridge.org |
| Keywords | Drugs ; Cross sectional surveys ; Germany. |
| Annotation | Data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE), a multidisciplinary study of an age- and gender-stratified, randomly selected sample of older people aged 70-100+ living in Berlin, are presented. Over-sampling, especially of very old men, allows for powerful analyses of this population. All participants went through extensive psychiatric and somatic examinations. Medication intake was assessed by interviewing patients and their family physicians, also drug inspection at home. Results were brought together in a consensus-conference, and research physicians gave operationalised ratings of medication appropriateness. The prevalence of older people who were taking at least one psychotropic medication within the 14 days immediately preceding investigation was 29.8%. Of these medications, 68.4% had been taken for longer than one year. There was no effect for age or gender on the scope of psychotropic drug use. Benzodiazepines were taken by 19.8% of the sample. Antidepressant neuroleptic drugs had significantly higher levels of psychiatric morbidity, as measured by syndromes and specified diagnoses. Psychotropic drugs were significantly less often judged to be indicated than somatic medications. This is most due to benzodiazepines. Psychotropic drug use is common in old age, but there is an additional increase in usage beyond the age of 70. Intake of psychotropics is mostly oriented at symptoms or syndromes, which explains why benzodiazepines are still the most commonly prescribed psychotropics. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-050216207 A |
| Classmark | LLD: 3KB: 767 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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