[Atropinic burden and anticholinergic drugs: Interest and application in clinical practice in the elderly].

Anticholinergic drugs (also called antimuscarinics or atropinics) increase the risk of falls, cognitive impairment and/or mortality in older patients. These drugs belong to the lists of potentially inappropriate medications in the elderly. The aim of this review was to present and discuss the different tools available to measure the atropinic risk in drug exposure of older patients. Several scales, developed from biological and/or clinical criteria, allow to classify anticholinergic drugs according to their atropinic potency and to assign to them an atropinic burden. Total atropinic burden of patient drug exposure can be calculated as the sum of atropinic score of each drug. Other tools include drug daily doses to better estimate the atropinic risk. These different methods are a precious help to decrease atropinic exposure in the elderly. Nevertheless, they have to be considered as upgradable and it is necessary to adapt them regularly according to the introduction of new drugs in clinical practice.