title: [Use and abuse of drugs in cognitive impairment patients].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Irrational use of drugs for the treatment of cognitive impairment can increase health costs in developing countries.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  to analyze the pattern of drug prescription related to the treatment of patients with dementia and to compare them with the income of patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  313 community-based outpatients that seeked medical advice for memory problems, in the Memory Center of Zubizarreta General Hospital (Buenos Aires, Argentina), were prospectively assessed during a period of a year.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Patients' mean income was 502.81 "Pesos Argentinos" which is equivalent to US$152 per month (2007). Fourty one point fifty five percent (41.55%) of the patients had dementia, 15.65% psychiatric diseases, 15.01% mild cognitive impairment and 27.79% were normal. Patients received an average of 2.84 drugs/day, 20% of the patients took at least one drug for cognitive impairment (9.85% memantine, 6.38% donepezil and 4% nootropics, cerebral vasodilators or antioxidants), and 39.3% received psychotropic medication (28.11% benzodiazepines and 9.26 % atypical antipsychotics). Twelve point seventy six percent (12.76%) of the patients with mild cognitive impairment were treated with antidementials, 5.74% of normal subjects received antidementials. 4% of patients were exclusively treated with free samples.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our sample irrational degree of using antidemential drugs and psychotropic agents was found.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Investigación de la Memoria, Hospital Abel Zubizarreta (GCBA). Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Tecnológicas (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina. grojas@anmat.gov.ar
authors.forename: Galeno
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rojas
authors.forename: Cecilia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Serrano
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Dillon
authors.forename: Leonardo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bartoloni
authors.forename: Mónica
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iturry
authors.forename: Ricardo F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Allegri
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003704:Dementia / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000191:economics*; D004363:Drug Utilization / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies