Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 27, 1994 TAG: 9407290057
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
Use of such medications can cause people to lose their balance or faint, resulting in serious injury or death. It also can rob them of their ability to think clearly and remember.
In a few cases, such medications can have toxic side effects, such as halting the production of bone marrow blood cells.
People receiving such drugs are ``often placed at risk for loss of their memory, loss of their balance and mental slowing,'' said the study's co-author, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor of medicine at the Cambridge (Mass.) Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
The study was published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Critics said the research is outdated and that there is disagreement among doctors about what drugs are inappropriate for elderly people.
Woolhandler herself cautioned that no one should stop taking a prescription drug without consulting a doctor. ``Some of these drugs ... have severe withdrawal symptoms, and sometimes fatal withdrawal symptoms,'' she said.
The study, involving 6,171 people over age 65, was based on 1987 federal survey data, the most recent available, Woolhandler said.
People in the study were considered to be using inappropriate drugs if they were taking any of 20 medications that a panel of independent experts said in 1991 should always be avoided by the elderly.
A total of 23.5 percent of those surveyed were using at least one of the drugs. Extrapolated to the general population, that would mean about 6.6 million of the more than 26 million elderly people not in nursing homes were getting inappropriate drugs.
The most common drugs used were the anticoagulant dipyridamole, better known as Persantine; the pain reliever propoxyphene, better known as Darvon Compound; and the antidepressant amitriptyline, better known as Elavil.
High use rates were also found for the diabetes drug chlorpropamide, or Diabinese; the tranquilizer diazepam, or Valium; the arthritis drug indomethacin, or Indocin; and the tranquilizer chlordiazepoxide, or Librium.
by CNB