The role of medication in falls among the elderly in a long-term care facility.

This case-control study examines the relationship between falls and drug use in elderly residents of a long-term care facility. The drug use and functional status of 57 first-time fallers were compared retrospectively with those of 90 residents who had never fallen. Fallers were taking significantly more drugs than controls. Hypnotic/anxiolytics and cardiac drugs carried a twofold increase in the risk of falling. Fallers were restrained less often, were more often ambulatory, and had been at the institution for a shorter time than controls. Previous studies have failed to use control groups or have selected controls by length of stay, possibly introducing bias into the results. A large prospective study is needed to determine whether these results are generalizable to the elderly institutionalized population as a whole.