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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Association between falls in elderly women and chronic diseases and drug use
— cross sectional study | | Author(s) | Debbie A Lawlor, Rita Patel, Shah Ebrahim |
| Journal title | British Medical Journal, vol 327, no 7417, 27 September 2003 |
| Pages | pp 712-715 |
| Keywords | Older women ; Falls ; Chronic illness ; Drugs ; Correlation ; Cross sectional surveys. |
| Annotation | Although the independent associations of particular diseases and types of drug are unclear, a number of chronic diseases, use of tranquillizers and antidepressants, and polypharmacy are associated with an increased risk of falling. Participants in this cross-sectional survey were 4050 women aged 60-79 in the British Women's Heart and Health Study. The prevalence of falling in the previous 12 months increased with increasing numbers of simultaneously occurring chronic diseases. However, no such relation was found in the fully adjusted data for the number of drugs taken. Circulatory disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression and arthritis were all associated with increased odds of falling. The fully adjusted population attributable risk of falling associated with having at least one chronic disease was 32.2%. Only two classes of drugs (hypnotics and anxiolytics, and antidepressants) were independently associated with an increased odds of falling. Each class was associated with an increase of about 50% in the odds of falling, and each had a population attributable risk of <5%. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-031002203 A |
| Classmark | BD: OLF: CI: LLD: 49: 3KB |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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