SynthesisJournal of the American Geriatrics Society2025
Deprescribing Benzodiazepine Receptor Agonists in Older Adults and People With Cognitive Impairment: A Systematic Review.
Synthesis in Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Deprescribing Benzodiazepine Receptor Agonists in Older Adults and People With Cognitive Impairment: A Systematic Review.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2025Pooled it
- Dual orexin receptor antagonist-assisted dose reduction of benzodiazepines and benzodiazepine receptor agonists: a mirror-image analysis of insurance claims data.Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine · 2026Article
- Global Trends in Deprescribing Benzodiazepine Receptor Agonists in Older Adults: A Dual-Database Bibliometric and Visual Analysis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Epidemiological Assessment of Benzodiazepine Dependence via Pharmacist-Led EMR Review in Pain and Palliative Care Institution.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Pitfalls of insomnia management in the elderly: A narrative review.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2026Review
- Anticholinergic and Sedative Medication Burden in Croatian Older Adults: EuroAgeism Cohort Findings.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Challenges of benzodiazepine deprescribing in elderly patients attending primary healthcare.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Acupuncture and related therapies for insomnia symptoms in hypertensive patients: protocol for a network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.Frontiers in neurologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundBenzodiazepine receptor agonists (BZRAs) (benzodiazepines and z-drugs) may provide limited benefits in the management of insomnia when used short-term. However, they increase the risk of harms including falls, fractures, hospitalizations, and cognitive impairment. Deprescribing (cessation) of BZRAs may be beneficial for older adults and people living with cognitive impairment as they are at heightened risk of adverse events. This review investigated the effects of patient-directed, non-pharmacological interventions to support deprescribing of BZRAs used for insomnia in older adults and people living with cognitive impairment.
methodsEmbase, CENTRAL, Scopus, and Medline were searched in January 2024 with no publication date restrictions. Screening, data extraction, and risk of bias assessments (ROB2 for randomized studies, ROBINS-I for non-randomized studies) were conducted independently by two authors. Outcomes of interest included the proportion of participants who ceased BZRAs, reduction in BZRAs, switching to another medication, sleep outcomes, and clinical outcomes. Studies were included if they investigated BZRA deprescribing in older adults (≥ 65 years) or people living with cognitive impairment.
resultsSeventeen reports analyzing 16 studies in hospital, community, and aged care settings were included. BZRA cessation rates ranged between 23% to 72% for written education (n = 6); 14% to 57% for combined written and verbal education (n = 5); and 9% to 100% for multi-component interventions (n = 6). One report investigated a BZRA deprescribing educational intervention in people with cognitive impairment and found comparable effectiveness to participants without cognitive impairment. Most studies were at a high risk of bias.
conclusionsPatient-directed interventions led to BZRA cessation, although there was significant variability between studies. It is unknown if all interventions examined are similarly effective for people living with cognitive impairment. Further research investigating approaches to deprescribing BZRAs in older adults or people with cognitive impairment is required.
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