Anticholinergic and sedative drug use and functional status among older Australians.

Drug burden index is a tool used to quantify a person’s total exposure to anticholinergic and sedative medications. Drug burden index has been associated with physical and cognitive performance in older people. Drug burden index can be used to assess the risks and benefits of prescribing for older populations. This project aims to test the validity of the drug burden index and its association with functional outcomes in an Australian population of older people living in retirement villages. It will also assess the feasibility of drug burden index as a prompt for medication review. The intervention will be conducted over 3 months and it will involve prompting General Practitioners to reduce those drugs contributing to drug burden index and potentially impairing the patient’s physical and cognitive function. For the intervention group, a report including list of medications associated with drug burden index will be sent to the General Practitioner for consideration of possible withdrawal (dose reduction or cessation). The report will quantify the degree of functional impairment that may be associated with the participant's drug burden. For the control group, there will be no prompting about drug burden.