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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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The impact of anticholinergic burden in Alzheimer's Dementia
— the Laser-AD study | | Author(s) | Chris Fox, Gill Livingston, Ian D Maidment |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 40, no 6, November 2011 |
| Pages | pp 730-735 |
| Source | http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/ http://www.bgs.org.uk/ |
| Keywords | Dementia ; Cognitive impairment ; Drugs ; Clinical surveys. |
| Annotation | The study aimed to examine the effect of medications with anticholinergic effects on cognitive impairment and deterioration in Alzheimer's dementia (AD). Cognitive function was measured at baseline and at six- and 18-month follow-up using the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE), the Severe Impairment Battery (SIB) and the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Battery, Cognitive subsection (ADAS-COG) in a cohort study of 224 participants with AD. Baseline anticholinergic Burden score (ABS) was measured using the Anticholinergic Burden scale and included all prescribed and over the counter medication. The sample was 224 patients with Alzheimer's dementia of whom 71.4% were women. Their mean age was 81.0 years (range 55-98). The mean number of medications taken was 3.6 and the mean anticholinergic load was 1.1. The total number of drugs taken and anticholinergic load correlated. Study findings revealed that there were no differences in MMSE and other cognitive functioning at either six or 18 months after adjusting for baseline cognitive function, age, gender and use of cholinesterase inhibitors between those with, and those without high anticholinergic load. Medications with anticholinergic effect in patients with AD were not found to affect deterioration in cognition over the subsequent 18 months. So the study did not support a continuing effect of these medications on people with AD. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-120427008 A |
| Classmark | EA: E4: LLD: 3G |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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