Scoping Review On Medication Reviews And Clinical Outcomes In Individuals With Dementia

Abstract

Individuals diagnosed with dementia often grapple with challenges related to polypharmacy and inappropriate medication use. They may potentially benefit from regular medication reviews. Despite this, the advantages of such reviews remain underexplored in this population. This scoping review aims to pinpoint existing knowledge gaps regarding the effects of medication reviews on clinical outcomes in older adults with dementia.

The search for relevant studies encompassed three databases (Ovid MEDLINE, Ovid EMBASE, and Scopus), spanning from their inception to January. A combination of keywords and medical subject headings was employed to identify pertinent studies. After the removal of duplicate entries and the exclusion of ineligible articles, 22 publications emerged from the initial pool of 8346, forming the basis for this review.

In total, 57 distinct outcomes were identified, including aspects related to medication use evaluation (n = 17), drug-related interventions (n = 11), drug-related problems (n = 10), dementia-associated behavioral symptoms (n = 8), cost-effectiveness (n = 2), drug-related hospital admissions (n = 1), alongside additional outcomes categorized as "other" (n = 7).

This scoping review exposes several gaps in the existing research. One notable gap is the scarcity of studies examining the impact of medication reviews on medication management capacity and medication adherence, quality of life, and mortality.