Anticholinergic use is a significant concern in dementia patients because of impaired cholinergic nervous system and an associated decrease in cognitive function [16].
Consequently, dementia patients are particularly sensitive to the cognitive adverse effects of anticholinergics [17, 18].Few studies have determined the use of anticholinergic medications in elderly dementia patients [19, 20]. Roe et al. used pharmacy benefit company data and found that 33 % of elderly dementia patients in the community used anticholinergic medications [19], and Carnahan et al. found a similar rate of clinically significant anticholinergic use in older Medicaid patients receiving cholinesterase inhibitors [20]. Chatterjee et al. [21] measured the prevalence of
anticholinergic use in elderly nursing home dementia patients and found that 21 % used medications with clinically significant anticholinergic effects. A recent study by
Bhattacharya et al. analyzed 2006–2007 ambulatory surveys and found that 10 % of outpatient visits for elderly US outpatients with dementia involved prescribing of a drug with clinically significant anticholinergic properties [22]. To our knowledge, no study has evaluated the prevalence of anticholinergic medications and its predictors in a nationally representative sample of community-based elderly dementia patients in the USA. Identification of predictors will help to determine elderly dementia patients at-risk so as to focus the efforts on this patient population to optimize anticholinergic medication use. Hence, this study will evaluate the annual prevalence of anticholinergic medications and factors associated with the use of these medications
in nationally representative elderly dementia patients using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) data.