Clinical compliance of donepezil in treating Alzheimer's disease in taiwan.
BACKGROUND
Adherence to cholinesterase inhibitor (ChEI) is associated with treatment effectiveness in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). We investigated the clinical adherence to donepezil in Taiwan.


METHODS
This was a retrospective study. Patients treated with donepezil were recruited from Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital and Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital from February 2004 to April 2013. We analyzed their treatment duration in months.


RESULTS
A total of 273 patients were included in our analysis. Sixty-seven patients withdrew from donepezil treatment with mean treatment duration of 28.0 ± 25.9 months. Better initial scores on the Mini-Mental Status Examination (P = .007), Cognitive Abilities Screening Instrument (P = .003), and the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) Sum of Boxes (P = .011) were positively associated with clinical adherence. The clinical adherent rate was higher in the CDR-0.5 group than in the CDR-2.0 group with significant difference.


CONCLUSIONS
Although there are some limitations in our study, these findings indicate that early intervention with ChEI in patients with AD should be emphasized and may lead to a better clinical adherence.
Department of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Yun-Ping
YP
Chang
Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Division of Community Medicine, Department of Family Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Chiu-Hsien
CH
Yang
Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Mei-Chuan
MC
Chou
Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Chun-Hung
CH
Chen
Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Department of Neurology, Kaohsiung Municipal Ta-Tung Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan Department of and Master's Program in Neurology, Faculty of Medicine, Kaohsiung Medical University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan endless@kmu.edu.tw.
Yuan-Han
YH
Yang
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology; D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D000077265:Donepezil; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007189:Indans / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D008297:Male; D010880:Piperidines / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D013624:Taiwan / Q000453:epidemiology; D016903:Drug Monitoring
D002800:Cholinesterase Inhibitors; D007189:Indans; D010880:Piperidines; D000077265:Donepezil
Alzheimer’s disease; National Health Insurance; adherence; donepezil