Anticholinergic Burden Awareness alert (ACB2) (HP103)

Anticholinergic Burden Awareness alert (ACB2) (HP103)

Purpose:

This protocol will inform clinicians of the anticholinergic burden score that the patient has, as well as the drugs that contribute to the score via a protocol alert.

What does it actually do?

Some medications have anticholinergic properties which contribute to memory loss, dementia, falls, urinary symptoms and even early death. Many common medications carry this anticholinergic effect and it is cumulative; the more you are on, the more the effect. This has been quantified in several scoring systems, including the Anticholinergic Cognitive Burden or ACB Scale (2008, revised in 2012), with many drugs being assigned a score of 1,2 or 3.
This protocol pops up and informs the clinician. It calculates the score and seeks to support deprescribing decisions when performing medication reviews, including the more complex Structured Medication Reviews.  The evidence for harm from these medications is more pronounced in those aged 65 or more where the calculator is most useful. 

Key features

  • ACB Scale referenced in NICE NG97,
  • Accurately assesses all currently prescribed medications against updated ACB categories (2012) and calculates the score
  • Shows clinicians which medications are contributing to the total score and by how much,
  • Allows the clinician to code the ACB Scale in the notes,
  • Gives advice about the ACB Scale to encourage deprescribing,
  • No need to manually input all medications into an external calculator or cross reference with paper tables. 

What does it look like?

When appropriate the alert will display as follows:



If you double click on the alert you will see:



System Dependencies:

This protocol is dependent on accurate coded information within EMIS web, contemporaneously recording medication issues. 

System Trigger: 

Automatically launched as part of our base tools.

Fitting your practice

Your team need to know that this alert may show when loading patients.  

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