Certain medicines could lead to falls in elderly

A recent study categorized certain medications as high risk for elders, consuming which could lead them to fall.

The article has been published in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

In a study of 287 individuals of 65 years, 62 percent of falls occurred in patients in whom high risk medications had been administered within the 24 hours.

High risk medications were often administered at higher than recommended geriatric daily doses, in particular benzodiazepines and benzodiazepine-receptor agonists, for which the dose was higher than recommended in 57 percent of cases.

The hospital's electronic medical record default doses for electronic prescribing were higher than recommended for 41 percent of medications that were examined.

Senior clinician-author Rosanne Leipzig said, "Before the widespread use of electronic prescribing, physicians had to consciously determine the appropriate drug dosage for an individual. This study highlights that with electronic prescribing, default doses do matter and lowering defaults for vulnerable patient groups such as elderly patients may be an easy way to reduce inappropriate use of high risk drugs for these patients.