Understanding Preferences Concerning Medicinal Treatments Benefits and Risks in Dementia Care: A Literature Review

Abstract

Disease-modifying treatments (DMT) are highly anticipated for dementia care. Recent market authorisation of Lecanemab (also known as Leqembi®) – one of such therapies – by the European Medicines Agency has sparked a furious debate among the different stakeholders, because of the serious side-effects and moderate clinical efficacy that was reported. However, little is known how people living with dementia or mild cognitive impairment (PwD) perceive these medicines. We aimed to report what has been reported in literature regarding the preferences of different stakeholder groups concerning treatment benefits and risks in dementia care. Our literature search detected sixteen studies, which were categorised in four themes: i) the design of a preference study intended for PwD (n = 3); ii) the preferences concerning study and treatment outcomes (n = 4); iii) the preferences concerning non-DMT medicinal treatments (n = 3), and; iv) the preferences concerning DMT (n = 6). In this report, we summarise the main outcomes and limitations that were mentioned in these studies. Furthermore, we highlight recommendations that should be implemented in future research that aims to elicit preferences concerning DMT in dementia care. These recommendations revolve around two themes: respondents and instrumentation. Implementation of our work enables future research to better understand the perspective of PwD concerning the recently approved DMT.