Potential Fall Risk Increasing Drugs and Falls in Community-dwelling Older Adults: A Prospective Cohort Study

Falls in community-dwelling older adults are the most frequent cause of injury. Every year, 30% of the adults over the age of 65 years fall increasing to 32-42% among those aged ≥ 75 years. Most falls have a multifactorial aetiology such as previous falls, advanced age, cognitive impair-ment, environmental risks, and hazardous activities, along with presence of chronic disease, muscle weakness, gait and balance disorders, and medication use Especially the use of fall-risk-increasing drugs (FRIDs) is a prominent risk factor.

Recently, The European Geriatric Medicine Society (EuGMS) Task and Finish Group published a consensus paper classifying 14 medication classes as fall-risk-increasing drug (FRID) (14). Most of them were psychotropics, but several new possible FRIDs were identified. However, the group did not reach consensus on 17 medication classes as potential FRIDs.

Therefore, to achieve a better understanding of these 17 medication classes as potential FRIDs, more studies taking these issues into account are warranted.

Primary objective:

To examine the association between use of the potential FRIDs and falls rate with a 1-year follow-up in a cohort of community-dwelling older adults, aged 75 years or more.