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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Common drugs used to treat stomach cramps, ulcers, motion sickness and urinary incontinence appear to cause older, healthy people to lose cognitive function one and a half time faster than those who dont take them.
The drugs that seem to cause the loss have anticholinergic properties. Our findings point to anticholinergic drugs having an adverse impact on cognitive performance in otherwise normal older people, study author, Jack Tsao, M.D., associate professor of Neurology at Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Md., was quoted as saying.
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Study participants were Catholic nuns averaging 75 years of age. They belonged to the Rush Religious Orders Study -- an ongoing clinical study of older people without dementia. During the eight year study, those affected took at least one anticholinergic drug.
Dr. Tsao went on to say that more research is needed to find out the mechanism behind the rapid memory loss the drugs seem to cause and to identify which ones in particular are more likely to impair cognition.
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SOURCE: Presented at the American Academy of Neurologys 60th Annual Meeting in Chicago, April 12-19, 2008
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
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