Relationship between anticholinergic drug use and one-year outcome among elderly people hospitalised in medical wards via emergency department: the SAFES cohort study.

AIM:

To investigate the relationship between anticholinergic drug use and one-year outcome of elderly patients hospitalised via the emergency department.

METHODS:

Prospective, multicentre, cohort study of patients aged 75 years and older. Comprehensive geriatric evaluation was performed. We included in this analysis all patients for whom data on drug use was available. Anticholinergic drugs were coded using the online database « Thesorimed ». One-year mortality and nursing home admission were analysed using a Cox model, with matching on the propensity to use anticholinergic drugs.

RESULTS:

In total, 1176 subjects were included in this analysis, average age 85±6 years, 65% women. Overall, 144 (12%) were taking at least one anticholinergic drug. Mortality and nursing home admission at one year were respectively 29% and 30% in the anticholinergic group, and 34% and 33% respectively in subjects not taking anticholinergic drugs. No significant relationship was observed between anticholinergic drug use and the main endpoints.

CONCLUSION:

Although we did not observed any statistically significant relationship between use of anticholinergic drugs and one-year outcome in elderly patients, the long-term use of anticholinergic drugs can have deleterious effects on memory and functional capacity, and therefore requires prescriptions to be reviewed regularly.