Study Examines Cognitive Effects of Schizophrenia Medications

People with schizophrenia often experience problems with learning, memory, attention, and social cognition. Astudy published inAJP in Advanceexamines how the cumulative effects of medications with anticholinergic properties (decrease the activity of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine) may contribute to worse cognitive outcomes.“Psychotropic medications, especially antipsychotics, are critically important therapeutics for schizophrenia, have substantially improved the lives and outcomes for countless patients living with schizophrenia, and represent an essential staple of comprehensive treatment,” wrote Yash Joshi, M.D ., Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues. However, “[e]fforts to limit or avoid excessive anticholinergic medication burden—regardless of source—may have a beneficial impact on cognitive outcomes in schizophrenia.”Joshi and colleagues analyzed medication records of 1,120 adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who were part of a study on the genetics of schizophrenia. The researchers assigned each medication that a patient was taking a score of 0 to 3 based on its anticholinergic strength (clozapine and olanzapine received 3s, for example, whereas risperidone received a 1). Most scores were available on an existing database known as the Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden (ACB) scale, and the researchers estimated scores for other medications based on their similarities to medications with ACB scores. The resear...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: ajp in advance anticholinergic Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden scale cognition schizophrenia Source Type: research