Citation

Kerman M, Mulvihill M. Mt. Sinai J. Med. 1990; 57(6): 343-347.

Affiliation

Department of Community Medicine, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine, New York, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1981925

Abstract

This case-control study examines the relationship between falls and drug use in elderly residents of a long-term care facility. The drug use and functional status of 57 first-time fallers were compared retrospectively with those of 90 residents who had never fallen. Fallers were taking significantly more drugs than controls. Hypnotic/anxiolytics and cardiac drugs carried a twofold increase in the risk of falling. Fallers were restrained less often, were more often ambulatory, and had been at the institution for a shorter time than controls. Previous studies have failed to use control groups or have selected controls by length of stay, possibly introducing bias into the results. A large prospective study is needed to determine whether these results are generalizable to the elderly institutionalized population as a whole.

Language: en