Association of polypharmacy and motoric cognitive risk syndrome in older adults: A 4-year longitudinal study in China

Polypharmacy is related to motoric cognitive risk (MCR) syndrome is not fully understood. Therefore, our aim was to fill this gap in knowledge. This population-based prospective longitudinal study used data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. It included 3827 dementia-free older adults (age >60 years) who were followed from 2011 to 2015. Data on subjective cognitive complaints, walking speed, and polypharmacy were reported by the participants. The cross-sectional relationship between polypharmacy and the MCR at baseline was examined using multinomial logistic regression, and Cox regression will be used to analyze the impact of polypharmacy on MCR over a four-year period. At baseline, 492 (12.9%) participants had been diagnosed with MCR. With 4 years of follow-up, 304 (12.5%) were classified as having incident MCR. Controlling for microsystem factors, polypharmacy (OR: 1.273, 95 % CI: 1.051-1.541; p < .05) was associated with MCR at baseline and every unit increase in polypharmacy was linked to a 53.8% (HR:1.538, 95 % CI: 1.227-1.927; p < .001) increase more likely to developing incident MCR. They adjusted for meso/ exosystem and macrosystem factors, and these associations remained significant, coping resources are believed to have a role in the relationships between polypharmacy and MCR in older persons. Polypharmacy is significantly associated with MCR incidence during 4 years of follow-up in older adults. Future studies should independently confirm this observation for potentially bringing clinical benefits to older people with polypharmacy.