• Drugs & aging · May 2013

    Anticholinergic drug use, serum anticholinergic activity, and adverse drug events among older people: a population-based study.

    • Pasi Lampela, Piia Lavikainen, J Arturo Garcia-Horsman, J Simon Bell, Risto Huupponen, and Sirpa Hartikainen.
    • Kuopio Research Centre of Geriatric Care, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio Campus, P.O. Box 1627, 70211 Kuopio, Finland. Pasi.Lampela@uef.fi
    • Drugs Aging. 2013 May 1;30(5):321-30.

    BackgroundThe serum anticholinergic activity (SAA) assay has been used to quantify patients' anticholinergic load. In addition, several ranked lists of anticholinergic drugs have been developed to assess anticholinergic drug burden.ObjectiveThis study investigated whether SAA assay results and scores from three ranked lists of anticholinergic drugs (Carnahan's Anticholinergic Drug Scale, Rudolph's Anticholinergic Risk Scale, and Chew's list) are associated with anticholinergic adverse drug events (ADEs) in older people.MethodsWe analyzed data from participants in the population-based Geriatric Multidisciplinary Good Care of the Elderly Study in Kuopio, Finland (n = 621). Demographic, diagnostic, and drug use data were collected during standardized interviews and verified from medical records. Vision, functional capacity, cognition, and mood were assessed using validated techniques. The SAA was measured from blood samples.ResultsThe SAA was not associated with anticholinergic ADEs. Anticholinergic drug burden computed using each of the three lists was inversely associated with short-distance vision (p < 0.01), activities of daily living (p < 0.05), and instrumental activities of daily living (p < 0.05) in persons with and without dementia. Furthermore, poorer Mini Mental State Examination and poorer Geriatric Depression Scale scores were associated with the anticholinergic drug burden in persons without dementia (p < 0.05-p < 0.001). The association between anticholinergic drug burden and ADEs was strongest when using the lists developed by Carnahan and Chew.ConclusionsScores obtained from ranked lists of anticholinergic drugs were associated with clinically significant anticholinergic ADEs but the SAA was not. This finding supports the usefulness of these lists to help identify patients at risk of anticholinergic ADEs in clinical practice.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…