Why the study?
Does polypharmacy (using five or more drugs) increase the rate of falls in older adults?
Does polypharmacy (using five or more drugs) increase the rate of falls in older adults?
Polypharmacy (≥5 drugs) is associated with a significantly increased rate of falls in older adults, highlighting the potential need to lower the threshold for detailed medication reviews.
May increase fall risk in older adults; hypothesis-generating for deprescribing trials before practice change.
We found almost one-third of the total population using five or more drugs, which was significantly associated with 21% increased rate of falls over a 2-year period. Further exploration of the effects of these complex drug combinations in the real world with a detailed standardised assessment of polypharmacy is greatly required along with pragmatic studies in primary care, which will help inform whether the threshold for a detailed medication review should be lowered.
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Dhalwani et al. (2017) studied this question.
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