ArticleDrugs & aging2016
Anticholinergic Drug Use and Risk to Cognitive Performance in Older Adults with Questionable Cognitive Impairment: A Cross-Sectional Analysis.
Article in Drugs & aging, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Anticholinergic burden for prediction of cognitive decline or neuropsychiatric symptoms in older adults with mild cognitive impairment or dementia.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2022Pooled it
- The cholinergic system exerts opposing effects on memory at different stages of disease progression in Alzheimer's and Down syndrome model systems.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Effect of Anticholinergic Drug Burden on Postoperative Delirium in Elderly Patients: A Nested Case-Control Study.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Review
- Beauty of the beast: anticholinergic tropane alkaloids in therapeutics.Natural products and bioprospecting · 2022Review
- Observational
- Non-benzodiazepine hypnotic use for sleep disturbance in people aged over 55 years living with dementia: a series of cohort studies.Health technology assessment (Winchester, England) · 2021Article
- Anticholinergic Drugs in Geriatric Psychopharmacology.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2019Review
- Anticholinergic drugs and functional, cognitive impairment and behavioral disturbances in patients from a memory clinic with subjective cognitive decline or neurocognitive disorders.Alzheimer's research & therapy · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAge-associated decline in central cholinergic activity makes older adults susceptible to the harmful effects of anticholinergic (AC) medications; however, there is an inadequate understanding of the association and possible effects of AC drugs on cognition. This cross-sectional study examines the associations of AC medications on cognition among older adults with questionable cognitive impairment (QCI).
methodsFor this cross-sectional study, we used a multicenter database of community-dwelling older adults (N = 7351) aged 60+ years with QCI, from September 2005 to March 2014, as the baseline data. The Anticholinergic Drug Scale was used to categorize AC drug load into no, low, or moderate/high groups. Individuals with a Clinical Dementia Rating-Sum of Boxes score between 0.5 and 2.5 were identified as having QCI, while cognitive performance was evaluated using the Neuropsychological Test Battery. The mean z-scores of neuropsychological tests were grouped into a global cognition score.
resultsParticipants who took AC medications were older, largely female, and had a higher prevalence of incontinence than those without AC exposure. Global cognition was significantly greater in the moderate/high-AC group than the no-AC group (-0.23 ± 0.53 vs. -0.32 ± 0.53). Multivariable linear regression showed that the global cognition score among the low- and moderate/high-AC groups, compared with the no-AC group, was 0.064 higher (p = 0.006 and p = 0.12, respectively).
conclusionsThis cross-sectional study indicates that older adults with QCI who were exposed to AC medications might have higher global cognitive scores than those without AC exposure. The observed associations indicate that older adults might experience some beneficial cognitive effects from AC drugs, possibly due to the therapeutic effects of these medications in controlling comorbidities, thus outweighing their adverse effects on cognition.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.