Anti-Dementia Medication Prescribing Patterns in England, 2006–2024

A cohort of 242,007 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's or Lewy-Body Dementia in England, analyzed for prescribing patterns of Acetyl Cholinesterase Inhibitors and memantine. The data was extracted from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum, covering 1,489 practices between 2006 and 2024. The study was authored by Charlotte Morris and examines associations with patient-level characteristics like socio-economic status and ethnicity.

Use Cases

• Analyzing disparities in anti-dementia medication access based on socio-economic deprivation quintiles mentioned in the description
• Investigating ethnic inequities in memantine prescribing rates referenced in the results
• Modeling time-series trends in the co-prescribing of AChEIs and memantine as described in the study design
• Assessing the impact of learning disabilities on the likelihood of receiving guideline-recommended treatments as reported in the findings

Strengths

• Contains 242,007 patient records, providing a substantial cohort for analysis
• Links patient-level data to the Index of Multiple Deprivation (2019) for socio-economic context
• Covers a long temporal range from 2006 to 2024 across 1,489 English primary care practices

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count for the specific dataset file is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• The 9.5 KB file size suggests a very limited scope, likely containing summary statistics rather than the full patient-level data

Provenance

Source

Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum

Collection Method

Retrospective cohort study using linked primary care and deprivation data

Time Range

2006–2024

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-01 18:04:45; freshness should be verified

Geography

England