Anticholinergic Medications and Health in Adults with Autism or Intellectual Disability

Anticholinergic medication exposure is substantially more prevalent in US Medicare/Medicaid adults with autism and/or intellectual disability, reaching 92.5% in autism+ID versus 61.3% in controls.

• Why it matters: Elevated aging-related risks in autistic adults and adults with intellectual disability, including ADRD, falls, and mortality, are not well explained, and anticholinergic exposure is a plausible modifiable contributor.
• What they did: In a retrospective 2017–2019 cohort of 40+ year-olds using linked Medicare/Medicaid claims, researchers coded anticholinergic potency with a comprehensive scale and used modified Poisson regressions, including sensitivity analyses excluding antidepressant and/or antipsychotic users.
• The result: Across autism-only, autism+ID, and ID-only groups, anticholinergic medications were more frequently associated with ADRD, falls, and mortality, with stepwise potency-linked associations more prominent than in controls.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.