Fall Risk Heightened With Prescription Sleep Medications

Physician-recommended sleep medications increase the risk of falling in older adults with insomnia, regardless of the presence of insomnia symptoms, according to a recent study.

Previous research has suggested that insomnia symptoms are associated with risk of falls later in life.
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In order to examine the independent and interactive effects of insomnia symptoms and sleep medications on fall risk, researchers conducted a study using data from the Health and Retirement Study (N=6882). Participants in the study reported recent sleep medication use, falls, and insomnia symptoms, and were evaluated for balance and walking speed.

Overall, a greater burden of insomnia symptoms and the use of physician-recommended sleep medications at baseline were associated with falls after adjusting for risk factors. The effects of insomnia symptoms on fall risk differed by medication use, and the extent of insomnia symptoms exhibited a positive, dose-response relation with risk of falling in patients not taking sleep medications.

Adults who were using physician-recommended sleep medications had a consistently higher risk of falling regardless of the extent of their insomnia symptoms.

“The number of insomnia symptoms predicts 2-year fall risk in older adults. Taking physician-recommended sleep medications increases the risks for falling in older adults, irrespective of the presence of insomnia symptoms. Future efforts should be directed toward treating insomnia symptoms, and managing and selecting sleep medications effectively to decrease the risk of falling in older adults.”

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Chen T, Lee S, Buxton OM, et al. A greater extent of insomnia symptoms and physician-recommended sleep medication use predict fall risk in community-dwelling older adults [published online October 3, 2017]. Sleep. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsx142.