Table 6 Risk of Alzheimer’s disease by prescribed amount of strong anticholinergic agents among continuous users and intermittent users.

From: Association of Anticholinergic Use with Incidence of Alzheimer’s Disease: Population-based Cohort Study

Prescribed amount (doses/year)

Continuous users

Intermittent users

No. of subjects

No. of AD events (%)

Hazard ratio (95% CI)

No. of subjects

No. of AD events (%)

Hazard ratio (95% CI)

0–9*

96,008

5,863 (6.1)

Reference

96,008

5,863 (6.1)

Reference

10–49

1,499

73 (4.9)

0.84 (0.67–1.06)

69,756

4,641 (6.7)

0.99 (0.95–1.03)

50–119

1,404

109 (7.8)

1.20 (0.99–1.45)

14,452

1,394 (9.7)

1.19 (1.17–1.27)

≥120

902

90 (10.0)

1.50 (1.21–1.85)

7,784

963 (12.4)

1.38 (1.29–1.59)

  1. Adjusted for sex, age, level of income, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, myocardial infarction, cardiovascular diseases, dizziness, genitourinary diseases, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, neuralgia, skin disease, sleep disorder, prescription amount of strong anticholinergics, and cumulative prescribed days of other non-anticholinergic agents that can impair cognitive function (all psychotic diseases including depression, psychosis, anxiety were excluded in the step of participant selection in advance).
  2. *Subjects belonging to the 0–9 doses/year were used as references in both the continuous and intermittent user groups.
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