Ditropan (oxybutinin), a common medication used to treat incontinence in older patients, has been found to cause memory loss.
George Kay M.D. a professor of neurology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, found that those taking Ditropan scored significantly worse on tests of memory.
The drop was quite profound: Kay notes “Sixty-seven-year-olds were performing like 77-year-olds”.
Ditropan beneficial effect in treating incontinence resides in its ability to reduce the amount acetylcholine. However, acetylcholine is a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in memory formation and Alzheimer’s disease.
Most of the current drugs currently used to treat Alzheimer’s patients aim to boost the amount of acetylcholine in the brain, not decrease it as Ditropan appears to do.
Tags: ditropan, incontinence, oxybutinin
