Cardiovascular medication burden in dementia disorders: a nationwide study of 19,743 dementia patients in the Swedish Dementia Registry.

INTRODUCTION

Administration of several cardiovascular drugs has an effect on dementia. We aimed to investigate whether there are differences in the use of cardiovascular medication between different dementia disorders.

METHODS

We obtained information about dementia patients from the Swedish Dementia Registry. Patients were diagnosed with one of these dementia disorders: Alzheimer's disease (n = 8,139), mixed dementia (n = 5,203), vascular dementia (n = 4,982), Lewy body dementia (n = 605), frontotemporal dementia (n = 409) and Parkinson's disease dementia (n = 405). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between use of cardiovascular medication and dementia disorders, after adjustment for age, gender, living alone, cognitive status and total number of drugs (a proxy for overall co-morbidity).

RESULTS

Seventy percent of all the dementia patients used cardiovascular medication. Use of cardiovascular drugs is common in patients with vascular and mixed dementia. Male gender, higher age, slightly better cognitive status and living with another person was associated with use of cardiovascular medication.

CONCLUSIONS

Cardiovascular medication is used extensively across dementia disorders and particularly in vascular and mixed dementia. Future research should investigate the tolerability and effectiveness of these drugs in the different dementia disorders.