A new way to visualise the big picture of prescribing in older people living with dementia
Canadian researchers have produced data visualisations to help understand complex prescribing patterns for people living with dementia. Using this new technique, the study, published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS), found that heart and blood pressure drugs (e.g. statins and beta blockers) were among the most common medications prescribed and that central nervous system drugs (e.g. cholinesterase inhibitors) were added over time. The network graphs also helped to show the complexity of co-prescribing to persons living with dementia – becoming visually denser over time.
Prescribing medications for older adults living with dementia can be complicated. Many people take multiple drugs for different health conditions and understanding these combinations and how they change over time, can be challenging if there are multiple prescribers. For this reason, the researchers explored a new way to look at prescribing patterns across many people using network analysis, a type of computer-based method that helps visualize and understand these complex relationships.
They examined data from almost 100,000 older adults living in Ontario, Canada, who had been newly diagnosed with dementia through ICES, a research institute which collects and analyses routinely collected health care data for health system evaluation and improvement. Using records of the medications people received at the pharmacy, they created network analysis graphs to show how frequently different medications were prescribed together, and used metrics based on these graphs to describe commonly medications and prescribing patterns.
Network analysis can visually and numerically summarise complex prescribing patterns across large populations and over time. By understanding these patterns, it is easier to identify where prescribing could be simplified or improved, and how medication use differs across individuals, prescribers, and regions. This is important to ensure equity in access and high-quality care.
Lead author Abby Emdin said “We found that visualisations generated by network analysis highlight common medication co-prescription in older people living with dementia. These methods may have applications in comparing medications across prescribers, regions, or other groups of interest.”
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Abby Emdin, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto and Susan Bronskill, Senior Core Scientist and Program Lead, ICES, Canada