earticle

영어

Objective: The aims of this study are to investigate the total volume of prescribed medicines against Alzheimer’s disease(AD) and the trends of usage by analyzing the claims-data from the Korea National Health Insurance Service. Method: The demographic and claims-data were included the major AD treating medicines such as donepezil, galantamine,rivastigmine and memantine, and analyzed during the period of 2010~2012. The assessing criteria were gender,age, habitation, types of medical institution, code of ingredients, outcomes of treatment, volume and amount of claims,and the numbers of patients with dementias. After trimming the data, it were analyzed by the market size, demographictraits, characteristics of medical service, characteristics of each anti-AD medicine, etc. Results: Among the chosen4 medicines, donepezil had the top prescription volumes. Most prevalent prescribing preparations of donepezil wereconventional types. However, among the non-conventional types, oro-dispersible formulation is the fast increasing onein both volume and growth rate. This specialized preparations to improve both toleration and adherence, tend to beingprescribed generally at the tertiary medical institutions. While the younger patients with mild-to-moderate AD mostlytreated by expensive medicines in resident at the tertiary hospitals, the rest older patients with severe AD have beentreated non-expensive one at long-term care facilities. Conclusion: AD is a chronic illness therefore, long-term use oftherapeutic medications are highly important. If an anti-AD treatment was applied steadily in the earlier stages, it wouldbe achieved not only improving the quality of life of patient but also reducing the expenses in the medical and nursingcares. As the socioeconomical impacts of AD is expanding, healthcare professionals need to aware the importance ofpharmacotherapy and to improve sociopolitical fundamentals.