INTRODUCTION: Administration of several cardiovascular drugs has an effect on dementia. We aimed to investigate whether there are differences in the use of cardiovascular medication between different dementia disorders. METHODS: We obtained information about dementia patients from the Swedish Dementia Registry. Patients were diagnosed with one of these dementia disorders: Alzheimer's disease (n = 8,139), mixed dementia (n = 5,203), vascular dementia (n = 4,982), Lewy body dementia (n = 605), frontotemporal dementia (n = 409) and Parkinson's disease dementia (n = 405). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between use of cardiovascular medication and dementia disorders, after adjustment for age, gender, living alone, cognitive status and total number of drugs (a proxy for overall co-morbidity). RESULTS: Seventy percent of all the dementia patients used cardiovascular medication. Use of cardiovascular drugs is common in patients with vascular and mixed dementia. Male gender, higher age, slightly better cognitive status and living with another person was associated with use of cardiovascular medication. CONCLUSIONS: Cardiovascular medication is used extensively across dementia disorders and particularly in vascular and mixed dementia. Future research should investigate the tolerability and effectiveness of these drugs in the different dementia disorders.

Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society Center for Alzheimer Research Aging Research Center Karolinska Institutet and Stockholm University Gävlegatan 16 113 30 Stockholm Sweden

Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society Center for Alzheimer Research Division for Neurogeriatrics Karolinska Institutet 141 57 Huddinge Sweden ; Department of Geriatric Medicine Karolinska University Hospital 141 86 Huddinge Sweden

Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society Center for Alzheimer Research Division for Neurogeriatrics Karolinska Institutet 141 57 Huddinge Sweden ; International Clinical Research Center and St Anne's University Hospital Pekařská 53 656 91 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society Center for Alzheimer Research Division of Clinical Geriatrics Karolinska Institutet 141 57 Huddinge Sweden

Department of Neurobiology Care Sciences and Society Center for Alzheimer Research Division of Clinical Geriatrics Karolinska Institutet 141 57 Huddinge Sweden ; Department of Geriatric Medicine Karolinska University Hospital 141 86 Huddinge Sweden

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Alzheimers Res Ther. 2014 Sep 20;6(5-8):63. doi: 10.1186/s13195-014-0063-4. PubMed

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Erratum to: Cardiovascular medication burden in dementia disorders: a nationwide study of 19, 743 dementia patients in the Swedish Dementia Registry