Pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementias in Long-Term Care: A Real-World EHR Study.

Cohort studyJournal of the American Medical Directors Association· Jul 2026

Pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementias in Long-Term Care: A Real-World EHR Study.

Tyler M Saumur, Huda Ashraf, Katherine E Mathers, Brittin Wagner

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GeriatricsCohort studyClinical practiceQ1IF 2.9

82% of long-term care residents with dementia had a dementia medication order

Pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementias in Long-Term Care: A Real-World EHR Study.

Tyler M Saumur … Brittin Wagner

Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · Jul 2026 · Q1 in General Medicine

Purpose

To characterize contemporary pharmacologic medication order patterns for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADRD) among US long-term care (long-term care) residents and to examine facility- and resident-level factors associated with treatment.

Methods

Retrospective and observational study.

n = 295,946 with a documented ADRD

Results

most had a dementia medication ordered, about one in five did not

Lewy body dementia

91.1%

Early onset AD

90.3%

Asian

72.3%

More results

Treatment was most common among residents with Lewy body dementia (91.1%) and early onset AD (90.3%) and least frequent among Asian (72.3%), Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander (74.6%) and short-stay residents (75.6%).

Treated residents exhibited a higher medication burden (mean, 8.6 vs 6.3).

More results

Diagnoses for other chronic conditions as well as specific ADRD subtypes strongly impacted probability of treatment; diabetes was associated with lower odds of treatment, whereas ADRD subtypes strongly predicted treatment.

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Conclusion · 1 of 2

Approximately one-fifth of residents with ADRD did not have an ADRD medication order, and treatment varied significantly by nonclinical predictors.

Conclusion · 2 of 2

These findings underscore the need to investigate and understand possible treatment disparities, optimize polypharmacy management, and discover new ADRD treatments, and develop safer and more effective ADRD therapies.

Pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementias in Long-Term Care: A Real-World EHR Study.

Pharmacotherapy for Alzheimer's Disease and Dementias in Long-Term Care: A Real-World EHR Study.

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