Commonly Used Medications May Produce Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults

Many drugs commonly prescribed to older adults for various common medical conditions, including allergies, hypertension, asthma, and cardiovascular disease, appear to negatively affect the aging brain causing immediate but possibly reversible cognitive impairment, including delirium, in older adults according to a clinical review online in the Journal of Clinical Interventions in Aging.

While it is known that these medications do have an effect on the brain and in the case of sleeping pills, are prescribed to act on the brain, the study authors suggest the amount of cognitive impairment caused by the drugs in older adults is not well recognized.

"The public, physicians, and even the Food and Drug Administration, need to be made aware of the role of these common medications, and others with anticholinergic effects, in causing cognitive impairment. Patients should write down and tell their doctor which over-the-counter drugs they are taking. Doctors, who often think of these medications simply as antihistamines, antidepressants, antihypertensives, sleep aids, or even itching remedies, need to recognize their systemic anticholinergic properties and the fact that they appear to impact brain health negatively. Doing so, and prescribing alternative medications, should improve both the health and quality of life of older adults," says senior study author Malaz Boustani, MD, an Indiana University School of Medicine associate professor of medicine, Regenstrief Institute investigator, and a research scientist with the Center for Aging Research.

Boustani and colleagues conducted a systematic evidence-based analysis of 27 peer-reviewed studies of the relationship of anticholinergic effect and brain function as well as investigating anecdotal information. They found a strong link between anticholinergic effect and cognitive impairment in older adults.

"One of the goals of our work is to encourage the Food and Drug Administration to expand its safety evaluation process from looking only at the heart, kidney, and liver effects of these drugs to include effects of a drug on the most precious organ in human beings, our brain," Boustani says.

Source: Indiana University