Anticholinergic activity and cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease
- Correspondence to Professor S E Starkstein, Fremantle Hospital, Education Building T-7, Fremantle 6959, Australia; ses{at}meddent.uwa.edu.au
- Received 5 October 2009
- Accepted 8 October 2009
Anticholinergic activity of medications may produce significant cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease.
In this issue, Ehrt et al (see page 160) report that patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) treated with a variety of medications with anticholinergic activity had a significantly greater cognitive decline than patients with PD never medicated with those drugs. This is the first longitudinal study to show a detrimental effect of drugs with anticholinergic activity in PD. The relevance of the findings is increased by the large sample included in the study, the fact that patients were recruited from a community based cohort, by …
