Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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DISCHARGE PHARMACOTHERAPY PATTERNS AND MEDICATION BURDEN IN ISCHAEMIC STROKE PATIENTS WITH DOCUMENTED COGNITIVE DYSFUNCTION: A DESCRIPTIVE STUDY IN A ROMANIAN TERTIARY-CARE HOSPITAL

IRINA MARIA VLAD 1,2*, ŞTEFAN STRILCIUC 3, DAFIN FIOR MUREȘANU 1,2,4,5, LĂCRĂMIOARA PERJU-DUMBRAVĂ 1,⁴

¹ Doctoral School, “Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
2 Department of Neurosciences, “Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
3 Department of Genomics, Medfuture Institute for Biomedical Research, “Iuliu Hațieganu” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
4 Neurology Clinic, Cluj County Emergency Clinical Hospital, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
5 RoNeuro Institute for Neurological Research and Diagnostic, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

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Discharge pharmacotherapy after acute ischaemic stroke (AIS) often involves multiple agents for secondary prevention and comorbidities, and medication burden may be clinically relevant in patients with cognitive impairment. This retrospective, cross-sectional, single-centre study characterised discharge pharmacological patterns and medication burden in patients with AIS and documented cognitive impairment hospitalised at a Romanian tertiary-care hospital during 2024 - 2025. Medicines were standardised to active substances using WHO ATC and national medicines nomenclature. Among 117 patients, 99.1%, 98.3%, 95.7%, and 95.7% received lipid-modifying, antithrombotic, cardiovascular, and antihypertensive therapies, respectively. Cognition-related active substances (N06BX and N06D) were prescribed to 52.1% of patients. The median active-substance count was 8 (IQR 6 - 10); 59.8% had polypharmacy and 28.2% had hyper-polypharmacy. Excluding cognition-related active substances reduced hyper-polypharmacy to 20.5%. No age-related differences were detected. Discharge treatment was characterised by extensive vascular and cardiovascular pharmacotherapy and substantial medication burden, to which cognition-related prescribing contributed without fully accounting for it.