Drugs, Seniors, Falling

All pharmaceuticals need to be analyzed completely including what their total effect on the patient is. In this case, the patients are elderly, a group for which falling can be quite devastating. I thank the folks at the Wall Street Journal Health Blog for this post.


July 16, 2008, 1:52 pm
Which Drugs Do — And Don't — Increase Fall Risks for the Elderly
Posted by Scott Hensley


Falls are the leading cause of injury deaths for people 65 and older, and they're the most frequent reason for trauma admissions among the elderly, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

The drugs older people take can make them more susceptible to falling. That's why researchers at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill are mobilizing pharmacists in drugstores to advise older folks and their doctors on drug choices that could lower the risk.

While the first results of UNC's federally funded test of the approach won't be known until later this year, we caught up with some of the researchers on the project recently. The basic problem is that patients — and even their physicians — are unlikely to be aware of all the side effects that common medicines can have, Susan Blalock, an associate professor at UNC's pharmacy school, told us.

Drugs ranging from sleeping pills to painkillers can make people woozy, confused or interfere with balance. To cut the risk of falls, the UNC researchers are focusing on the options among nine groups of medicines. For a look at the best and worst choices by category, see the appendices to the study in the June issue of the American Journal of Geriatric Pharmacotherap


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