Evaluation of tiapride in agitated elderly outpatients: an open study

The aim of this study was the evaluation of the efficacy and safety of tiapride 50-100 mg administered 3 times a day to elderly patients with aggressive behavior. Data from 425 questionnaires concerning aggressive behavior in Greek elderly patients were evaluated before and after treatment. The Brief Agitation Rating Scale (BARS), which has 10 items, was used to evaluate the effectiveness of tiapride. To test the overall effectiveness of the drug during the trial, the statistical method of repeated measures ANOVA was applied to the total score and the very small F-value (p < 0.0005) led us to accept the hypothesis that tiapride significantly improves the condition of elderly patients with aggressive behavior. Only 6.2% of patients developed an adverse event during the trial. With 95% probability one may state that the probability of an adverse event occurring during the administration of tiapride is between 5% and 7.4%. We conclude that tiapride, apart from being very efficient in ameliorating aggressive behavior in elderly patients, is also very safe to administer. Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.