Data on how patients remain on drug therapies
following initiation of treatment (drug persistence)
in the community can provide a useful insight into
how effective and/or well tolerated that agent is over
prolonged periods in an actual clinical practice set-
ting. However, the discontinuation rates reported in
clinical trials within a short period of time may not
reflect the rates actually observed in usual care
settings.[18] Persistency studies have demonstrated
that patients who take their medications long-term
can benefit from more effective therapy, which can
lead to reduced healthcare utilisation and costs asso-
ciated with less frequent visits to healthcare provid-
ers and less need for aggressive and costly treat- ment.[19,20]
The objectives of the current study were to ex- amine discontinuation and switching patterns for the study medications in AD patients who started treat- ment with rivastigmine or donepezil in a real-world setting and to determine factors that influence dis- continuation and switching patterns. The study fo- cused on patients ≥65 years of age because elderly patients take a large number of prescription medica- tions and thus may be more prone to discontinuing treatment