Since january 1st of this year, people over 65 years old had a fall in Europe, sometimes with serious consequences.
Since january 1st of this year, people over 65 years old had a fall in Europe, sometimes with serious consequences.
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Many illnesses can be factors conducive to falling. Unfortunately, the frequency of some of these illnesses or syndromes increases with age. They can also be combined, to such an extent that they were long confused with the expression of ageing. This is the case for:
- neuropsychiatric diseases: dementia, depression, Parkinson's disease or others;
- ocular diseases: cataract, glaucoma, degeneration of the retina, etc.;
- osteoarticular diseases, etc.
In France, seniors are high consumers of drugs.The health insurance fund provided the following figures:
- people over 75 consume health care and drugs three times as much as the general population.
- drug prescriptions for people over 65 represent a third of all prescriptions, while this population only constitutes around 15% of French population.
- in 2001, nearly a quarter of reimbursed drug prescriptions were for people aged 70 or over (who represent a little more than 10% of the total population).
- only 11% of French people over 65 do not take any drugs on a regular basis.
The average consumption of this group is from 4 to 5 drugs per day, but prescription drugs sometimes contain over a dozen molecules. Multiple medication use can have numerous consequences, and notably falls: they are known as iatrogenic falls. In Greek, 'iatros' means physician, and 'gennan' means as 'as a product of': iatrogenic falls are therefore falls caused by the doctor!
Iatrogenic falls arise from various mechanisms in relation to the administration of numerous drugs. It is therefore important not to take drugs without talking to a physician first. Moreover, you mustn't hesitate to tell them about the adverse reactions you may experience when undergoing a new treatment.
For more information:
Drugs presenting the highest risk belong to different groups:
In the first place, psychoactive drugs (benzodiazepines, hypnotics and antidepressants), hypotension (whether global or orthostatic), vigilance disorders, anaemia, hypoglycaemia
- Hypotension: the drugs mainly responsible are of course antihypertensives, nitro compounds but also antidepressants, major tranquilisers and opioid analgesics,
- Hypoglycaemias: they occur when taking insulin or hypoglycaemic sulfonamides and are either atypical or severe,
- Heart rhythm and/or cardiac conduction disorders: they are often serious and in relation with an electrolytic disorder (dyskaliemia, dyscalcemia) or the prescription (alone or in combination with other drugs) of digitalis glycosides, beta adrenergic blocking agents, antiarrhythmics, non dihydropyridinic calcium channel blockers, lithium, theophylline,
- Hemorrhagic accidents.
A fall can be a brutal and fortuitous event in relation with an intercurrent factor, but can also be the symptom of an illness (see the chapter on causes of falls). In both cases, repeated falls mean that their cause (extrinsic factor or causal illness) is still present.
A medical history of falling in the previous year is thus one of the main fall risk factors. It is often combined with a lower level of autonomy.
Knowing how to identify an increase in falls is therefore interesting, for it is a good warning signal: it makes it possible to take early measures: seeking professional advice or setting up preventive measures at home (see the chapter on fall prevention).
