J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 1991; 3:412-416
Copyright © 1991 by American Neuropsychiatric Association
A retrospective analysis of the effects of anticholinergic medication on memory performance in Parkinson's disease
BE Levin, MM Llabre, S Reisman, WJ Weiner and MC Brown
Department of Neurology, University of Miami, School of Medicine, Florida 33101.
We examined the effects of anticholinergic medication on memory function in
113 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). Subjects were
divided into three disease duration groups: early, middle, and advanced.
The battery consisted of three tasks assessing memory of logical discourse,
semantically related words, and figural material. We found no evidence of
anticholinergic-induced memory dysfunction in any of the three groups.
Analysis of covariance indicated that age was not a significant variable;
however, dementia may have influenced the relationship between
anticholinergic medication and memory scores. Our results indicate that
anticholinergic medication does not uniformly compromise memory function in
PD patients.
