Patients with kidney dysfunction are prone to land up in a hospital with severe disorientation within a few days of taking baclofen, a commonly prescribed muscle relaxant warns a new study. “When we looked at people with low kidney function (30 per cent or less) who received a high dose of baclofen from their prescriber, approximately one in 25 were being admitted to hospital with severe confusion, typically over the next few days, ” said Dr Amit Garg, Professor at Western University and Scientist at ICES and Lawson.”If you compare that to a group of people who had low kidney function who didn’t get baclofen, that risk is less than one in 500, so it’s quite a dramatic difference between the two groups,” he said in the study published in the journal American Medical Association on November 9 and presented simultaneously at the American Society of Nephrology meeting in Washington.The study was initiated because of observations that nephrologists were noting in a clinic at London Health Sciences Centre. Dr Peter Blake, Lawson scientist and co-author on the study says this drug is commonly prescribed for muscle spasms and muscle pain, and is also prescribed off-label for alcoholism.
