Sep 9, 2025 08:34 PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/healt...=url-share
EXCERPTS: “If another dog came toward us, every single time I’d end up on the ground,” recalled Mr. Vickers, 69, a retired electrical engineer. “It seemed like I was falling every other month. It was kind of crazy.”
Most of those tumbles did no serious damage, though one time he fell backward and hit his head on a wall behind him. [...] Among the drug’s listed side effects are higher rates of falls and fractures among patients who took it, compared with those given a placebo. His doctor agreed that he could discontinue the drug, and “I haven’t had a single fall since,” Mr. Vickers said.
Public health experts have warned of the perils of falls for older people for decades. [...] More startling than that figure, though, was another statistic: Fall-related mortality among older adults has been climbing sharply.
The author, Dr. Thomas Farley, an epidemiologist, reported that death rates from fall injuries among Americans over 65 had more than tripled over the past 30 years. [...] The culprit, in his view, is Americans’ reliance on prescription drugs.
“Older adults are heavily medicated, increasingly so, and with drugs that are inappropriate for older people,” Dr. Farley said in an interview. “This didn’t occur in Japan or in Europe.”
Yet that same 30-year period saw a flurry of research and activity to try to reduce geriatric falls and their potentially devastating consequences, from hip fractures and brain bleeds to restricted mobility, persistent pain and institutionalization.[...] But are prescription drugs driving that increase? Geriatricians and others who research falls and prescribing practices question that conclusion.
Dr. Farley, a former New York City health commissioner who teaches at Tulane University, acknowledged that many factors contribute to falls, including the physical impairments and deteriorating eyesight associated with advancing age; alcohol abuse; and tripping hazards in people’s homes.
[...] The difference, he believes, is Americans’ increasing use of medications — like benzodiazepines, opioids, antidepressants and gabapentin — that act on the central nervous system. “The drugs that increase falls’ mortality are those that make you drowsy or dizzy,” he said.
Problematic drugs are numerous enough to have acquired an acronym: FRIDs, or “fall risk increasing drugs,” a category that also includes various cardiac medications and early antihistamines like Benadryl... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: “If another dog came toward us, every single time I’d end up on the ground,” recalled Mr. Vickers, 69, a retired electrical engineer. “It seemed like I was falling every other month. It was kind of crazy.”
Most of those tumbles did no serious damage, though one time he fell backward and hit his head on a wall behind him. [...] Among the drug’s listed side effects are higher rates of falls and fractures among patients who took it, compared with those given a placebo. His doctor agreed that he could discontinue the drug, and “I haven’t had a single fall since,” Mr. Vickers said.
Public health experts have warned of the perils of falls for older people for decades. [...] More startling than that figure, though, was another statistic: Fall-related mortality among older adults has been climbing sharply.
The author, Dr. Thomas Farley, an epidemiologist, reported that death rates from fall injuries among Americans over 65 had more than tripled over the past 30 years. [...] The culprit, in his view, is Americans’ reliance on prescription drugs.
“Older adults are heavily medicated, increasingly so, and with drugs that are inappropriate for older people,” Dr. Farley said in an interview. “This didn’t occur in Japan or in Europe.”
Yet that same 30-year period saw a flurry of research and activity to try to reduce geriatric falls and their potentially devastating consequences, from hip fractures and brain bleeds to restricted mobility, persistent pain and institutionalization.[...] But are prescription drugs driving that increase? Geriatricians and others who research falls and prescribing practices question that conclusion.
Dr. Farley, a former New York City health commissioner who teaches at Tulane University, acknowledged that many factors contribute to falls, including the physical impairments and deteriorating eyesight associated with advancing age; alcohol abuse; and tripping hazards in people’s homes.
[...] The difference, he believes, is Americans’ increasing use of medications — like benzodiazepines, opioids, antidepressants and gabapentin — that act on the central nervous system. “The drugs that increase falls’ mortality are those that make you drowsy or dizzy,” he said.
Problematic drugs are numerous enough to have acquired an acronym: FRIDs, or “fall risk increasing drugs,” a category that also includes various cardiac medications and early antihistamines like Benadryl... (MORE - missing details)
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