Anticholinergic deprescribing interventions for reducing risk of cognitive decline or dementia in older adults with and without prior cognitive impairment

CONCLUSIONS: There is insufficient evidence to reach any conclusions on the effects of anticholinergic burden reduction interventions on cognitive outcomes in older adults with or without prior cognitive impairment. The evidence from RCTs was of very low certainty so cannot support or refute the hypothesis that actively reducing or stopping prescription of medications with anticholinergic properties can improve cognitive outcomes in older people. There is no evidence from RCTs that anticholinergic burden reduction interventions improve other clinical outcomes such as mortality, quality of life, clinical global impression, physical function, institutionalisation, falls, cardiovascular diseases, or neurobehavioral outcomes. Larger RCTs investigating long-term outcomes are needed. Future RCTs should also investigate potential benefits of anticholinergic reduction interventions in cognitively healthy populations and cognitively impaired populations separately.PMID:38063254 | DOI:10.1002/14651858.CD015405.pub2
Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews - Category: General Medicine Authors: Source Type: research