ArticleBMC geriatrics2019
Joint effects of advancing age and number of potentially inappropriate medication classes on risk of falls in Medicare enrollees.
Article in BMC geriatrics, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 22 citations in OpenAlex.
- Potentially inappropriate prescribing and falls-risk increasing drugs in people who have experienced a fall: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Age and ageing · 2025Pooled it
- Potentially Inappropriate Medications in Hospitalized Older Patients in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia Using 2023 Beers Criteria: A Retrospective Multi-Centric Study.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2024Article
- Evaluation of a concept to classify anamnesis-related risk of complications and oral diseases in patients attending the clinical course in dental education.BMC oral health · 2023Article
- Oral Health Status Using the Revised Oral Assessment Guide and Mortality in Older Orthopaedic Patients: A Cross-Sectional Study.Clinical interventions in aging · 2023Article
- Deprescribing Medications that Increase the Risk of Falls in Older People: Exploring Doctors' Perspectives Using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF).Drugs & aging · 2022Article
- Potentially Inappropriate Medications among Elderly with Frailty in a Tertiary Care Academic Medical Centre in Saudi Arabia.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Impaired Oral Health in Older Orthopaedic In-Care Patients: The Influence of Medication and Morbidity.Clinical interventions in aging · 2021Article
- Inappropriate medications and physical function: a systematic review.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2021Review
- Relationship between potentially inappropriate medications and functional prognosis in elderly patients with distal radius fracture: a retrospective cohort study.Journal of orthopaedic surgery and research · 2020Article
- Prevalence and predictors of falls in a health-seeking older population: An outpatient-based study.Aging medicine (Milton (N.S.W)) · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundInjurious falls among older adults are both common and costly. The prevalence of falls is known to increase with age and with use of fall-risk drugs/potentially inappropriate medications (FRD/PIM). Little is known about the joint effects of these two risk factors.
methodsData for 2013-2015 were obtained from the Truven Health MarketScan® Medicare database comprising utilization and eligibility (enrollment) data for approximately 4 million enrollees annually. A case-control design was used to compare enrollees aged 65-99 years diagnosed with > 1 fall event (n = 110,625) with enrollees without falls (n = 1,567,412). An exploratory analysis of joint age-FRD/PIM effects on fall risks was based on number needed to harm (NNH) calculations for each FRD/PIM therapy class count (compared with 0 FRD/PIMs), stratified by age group. Logistic regression analyses adjusted for demographics, comorbidities, and fracture history, measured in the 1 year prior to the fall date (cases) or a randomly assigned date (controls).
resultsFor each FRD/PIM class count, NNH values decreased with older age (e.g., for 1 FRD/PIM class: from NNH = 333 for ages 65-74 years to NNH = 83 for ages 90-99 years; for 2 FRD/PIM classes: from NNH = 91 for ages 65-74 years to NNH = 38 for ages 90-99 years). NNH decreased to < 15 patients at > 6 classes for age 65-74 years, > 5 classes for age 75-84 years, and > 4 classes for age 85-99 years. Adjusted odds of falling were increased for age-FRD/PIM combinations with smaller NNH values: adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 1.127 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.098-1.156) for NNH = 83-91; AOR = 1.427 (95% CI = 1.398-1.456) for NNH = 17-48; AOR = 1.983 (1.9034-2.032) for NNH < 15.
conclusionFRD/PIM use and age appear to have joint effects on fall risk. Older adults at high risk, indicated by small NNH, may be appropriate for fall prevention initiatives, and clinicians may wish to consider decreasing the number of FRD/PIMs utilized by these patients.
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