corner
Healthy Skepticism
Join us to help reduce harm from misleading health information.
Increase font size   Decrease font size   Print-friendly view   Print
Register Log in

Healthy Skepticism Library item: 11690

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Maeck L, Haak S, Knoblauch A, Stoppe G.
Primary care physicians' attitudes related to cognition enhancers in early dementia: a representative eight-year follow-up study in Lower Saxony, Germany.
Int J Geriatr Psychiatry 2007 Oct 1;
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/116325237/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0


Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: By means of a representative follow-up survey, we investigated changes in family physicians’ (FPs) attitudes towards cognition enhancers in early dementia during 1993 and 2001.

METHODS: One hundred and twenty-two FPs (response rate 71.8%) in Lower Saxony, Germany, were randomly assigned to one of two written case samples presenting a patient with cognitive decline suggestive of early Alzheimer’s disease (DAT; case A: female patient vs case B: male patient). Using a structured face-to-face interview, they were asked to suggest their potential drug treatment. The results were compared to corresponding data from our previous survey in 1993.

RESULTS: FPs’ readiness to start antidementia drug treatment decreased from 70.4% in 1993 to 43.4% at follow-up, although underlying DAT was significantly more frequently suggested (11.0% vs 26.2%, p < 0.05). Substances with questionable efficacy such as Piracetame were prescribed less frequently in 2001 whereas evidence-based medication like cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) failed to compensate for this drop. Compared to 1993, when 55.2% of FPs expected no therapeutic impact, at follow-up, 75.4% expected slowdown of disease progression, stabilisation or improvement of symptoms (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrate a significant decrease of therapeutic nihilism in primary care within eight years. However, in patients with suspicion of DAT, this is not reflected accordingly in potential treatment.

gabriela.stoppe@upkbs.ch

Keywords:
primary care • Alzheimer's disease • antidementia drug treatment • cholinesterase inhibitors

 

  Healthy Skepticism on RSS   Healthy Skepticism on Facebook   Healthy Skepticism on Twitter

Please
Click to Register

(read more)

then
Click to Log in
for free access to more features of this website.

Forgot your username or password?

You are invited to
apply for membership
of Healthy Skepticism,
if you support our aims.

Pay a subscription

Support our work with a donation

Buy Healthy Skepticism T Shirts


If there is something you don't like, please tell us. If you like our work, please tell others.

Email a Friend








...to influence multinational corporations effectively, the efforts of governments will have to be complemented by others, notably the many voluntary organisations that have shown they can effectively represent society’s public-health interests…
A small group known as Healthy Skepticism; formerly the Medical Lobby for Appropriate Marketing) has consistently and insistently drawn the attention of producers to promotional malpractice, calling for (and often securing) correction. These organisations [Healthy Skepticism, Médecins Sans Frontières and Health Action International] are small, but they are capable; they bear malice towards no one, and they are inscrutably honest. If industry is indeed persuaded to face up to its social responsibilities in the coming years it may well be because of these associations and others like them.
- Dukes MN. Accountability of the pharmaceutical industry. Lancet. 2002 Nov 23; 360(9346)1682-4.