In this issue appears a paper titled “Association of Polypharmacy With 1-Year Trajectories
of Cognitive and Physical Function in Nursing Home Residents: Results From a Multicentre
European Study.” The authors defined polypharmacy by medication count as either 5 to 9 drugs or ≥10 drugs, with 0 to 4 drugs as the
reference. They found a relationship between polypharmacy and decline in cognitive
function as measured by the Cognitive Performance Scale but not with functional status
decline as measured by the Activities of Daily Living (ADL) Hierarchy scale. The choice
to use the interRAI–Long Term Care Facilities (interRAI-LTCF) as opposed to the Minimum
Data Set Version 3.0 (MDS 3.0) to derive their cognitive function measures limits
the clinical application of the findings, as the MDS 3.0 has perhaps a more clinically
interpretable cognitive function measure: the Brief Interview for Mental Status.
1
Moreover, the measure of functional status used in this study (observed ADL) is not
as sensitive to change as are performance measures such as the Short Physical Performance
Battery.
2
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: May 31, 2018
Footnotes
The authors have no conflicts of interests to disclose.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 AMDA - The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
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- Association of Polypharmacy With 1-Year Trajectories of Cognitive and Physical Function in Nursing Home Residents: Results From a Multicenter European StudyJournal of the American Medical Directors AssociationVol. 19Issue 8
