Which Medications Increase Your Fall Risk?
And what can you do about it?
Medications are one of the 6 Pillars of Balance
Pharmaceutical innovation in the last 100 years has been phenomenal. Many conditions which previously made daily living impossible or utterly miserable can now be managed, to some degree, by medications.
But you may not know that even mild side effects from the medications you need can impact your balance and risk of falling.
The American Society on Aging and CDC recommend that older adults discuss all their medications with their healthcare provider at least every year. This should also be done together with tests for kidney and liver function as these two organs process food and medications differently as you age and can often indicate that a dose may need to be changed to optimize your health.
The medications that are known to increase fall risk can be put into five main categories. If you take even one type, be sure to ask your doctor or pharmacist to review the list annually. Bear in mind it’s important to also include herbal supplements, vitamins or over the counter medications like painkillers or allergy meds when asking for this review.
It can be a good idea to take your time and write them all down, including how many you take and how often, as well as any adverse effects you have noticed in your own life. Dizziness and drowsiness are often mentioned – both of which have a clear effect on balance, so it’s important to mention it. It may be possible to change your dose, the precise type of medication or even when you take it, so it’s definitely worth going to your appointment with all the relevant information to hand.
The big five categories are:
Sedatives & hypnotics. These are usually prescribed if you have trouble sleeping, whether for an adverse event like illness or grief, but they can cause daytime drowsiness and lack of coordination.
Antidepressants. Some of these can cause drowsiness, blurred vision or dizziness, which affects your balance and increases your fall risk.
Blood pressure medications. These are essential for controlling high blood pressure (which can also be a fall risk), but they can cause light headedness, especially after standing up quickly or getting up from lying down. They can also cause fainting or dizziness. Bear in mind that it can take your body 2-3 weeks to get used to blood pressure medications, during which time these higher fall risk symptoms may be worse.
Opioids. Prescribed as pain killers for both acute and chronic pain, these medications can cause confusion, loss of balance and dizziness.
Antipsychotics. These are used to treat certain behavioral issues in older adults, but can also cause drowsiness or confusion.
Different people react differently to different medications, which is why it’s so important to write down your personal experience to share with your care team.
It’s equally important to wait to speak to your doctor before changing or stopping any medication. Just because it’s on a caution list or makes you feel dizzy doesn’t mean that stopping suddenly is necessarily a safe thing to do – for your health or your fall risk.
What if You Need Those Medications?
You may find, even after a review that you still need to take medications with bad side effects for balance. Don’t despair. Part of the reason ZIBRIO developed the Six Pillars of Balance is to help people recognize that the different aspects of your lifestyle work together as a team. If one pillar is weaker than the rest, there are still things you can do to protect your balance via the other pillars.
Action You Can Take Today
Getting moving and doing exercise daily is vital to protect your balance. It may also help you manage your other symptoms, such as sleeping better without sleep aids or reducing chronic pain with reduced opioids.
To evaluate how your lifestyle is affecting your balance, you can answer the questions in the ZIBRIO BalanceCoach app. Click on each section and answer the questions for what you’ve been doing in the last week. Each segment will color code for whether your actions are good for balance (green), not helpful (yellow) or bad for balance (red). This can give you a starting point for what you want to tackle first. Bear in mind that the best place to start is the pillar that’s easiest for you to make a small change in today. It’s about making small manageable steps in the right direction, not striving for perfection.