• Paul L J Dautzenberg, Leonie J Mulder, Marcel G M Olde Rikkert, Cees J Wouters, and Anton J M Loonen.
• Department Geriatrics Jeroen Bosch Ziekenhuis, s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. p.dautzenberg@jbz.nl
• Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2004 Jul 1;19(7):641-4.

ObjectivesTo investigate the efficacy of the chronic usage of the cholinesterase inhibitor rivastigmine in patients with dementia in the prevention of delirium in case of hospitalisation.DesignRetrospective cohort study.SettingNon-geriatric wards of an 1120 bed general teaching hospital in s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands.ParticipantsOf a group of 366 hospitalised patients, treated by the geriatric consultation team from January 2002 until June 2003, the patients who used rivastigmine chronically were compared with a randomly selected subgroup of all patients not treated with rivastigmine.MeasurementsThe occurrence and duration of a delirium, co-morbidity, use of medication, length of hospitalisation and psychosocial data were collected from the medical charts of the geriatric consultation team.Results11 patients (3%) were chronic rivastigmine users. A control group of 29 subjects was randomly selected from the non-rivastigmine users of the patient population. In the group that used rivastigmine five patients (45.5%) developed a delirium, compared with 8 (88.9%) in the control group (p < 0.05).ConclusionsChronic rivastigmine use may contribute to the prevention of a delirium in a high-risk group of elderly hospitalised patients suffering from dementia.Copyright 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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