Preventing Falls
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Ask your wife's health care provider or pharmacist about the medications she is taking.

Are any known to make people at risk of injury? Discuss whether the benefit from the medicine is worth the risk of falling.

Check new medications, too. Find out if there could be side effects such as dizziness or blurred vision. Either could upset balance.

Here are some medicines that experts agree have a very high risk of injury with very limited chance of benefit for older people:

All barbituates unless used to treat seizure disorder or epileptic fits.

Benedryl only for allergies on a physician's advice.

Chart adapted from:
Beers, M. (1997). "Explicit criteria for determining potentially inappropriate medication use by the elderly: An update." Archives of Internal Medicine, 157(14), 1531-1536.

See also: Personal Tips -- Doctor Visits

Links to other sites with information on this topic:

"Inappropriate Psychotropic Agents for the Elderly," by Rajender R. Aparasu, Ph.D., Jane R. Mort, Pharm.D., and Anuradha Aparasu, M.D. Geriatric Times, March/April 2001 Vol. II Issue 2.