Two reports from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina found that older people who took anticholinergics, a commonly prescribed group of drugs for incontinence, allergy or high blood pressure, functioned less well than their peers.
Anticholinergic drugs work by stopping acetylcholine, a chemical that enhances communication between nerve cells in the brain, from binding to its receptors in nerve cells. The same effects of the medicine can be seen in older adults who have normal memory and thinking abilities.
Study author Dr. Kaycee M. Sink said in a prepared statement, "The effect is essentially that of a three- to four-year increase in age. So someone who is 75 in our study and taking at least one moderately anticholinergic medication is at a similar functional level to a 78 to 79-year-old."
The medicines studied by the authors included the blood pressure medication nifedipine (Adalat or Procardia), the stomach antacid ranitidine (Zantac) and the incontinence medication tolterodine (Detrol). The authors studied 3,000 people of whom 40 percent were taking more than one anticholinergic drug.
The research, presented at the American Geriatrics Society Meeting in Washington, advised physicians to carefully consider the implications when prescribing anticholingeric medications to older adults, Health Day news reports.
