We recently discovered that from the age of 35 our performance did not collapse as it had been thought, but rather On the contrary. However, it is a law of life that new problems derived from health and our physical form arrive with old age. In fact, in the United States they have realized one thing: more and more elderly die from falls, and have found the culprit.
A growing problem. In the United States, falls have become one of the main causes of death among older people. In 2023 they died More than 41,000 adults over 65 years of injuries associated with fallsand the mortality rate has tripled in three decades.
The most vulnerable group, those over 85, went from 92 deaths per 100,000 in 1990 A 339 in 2023. This increase is alarming because it coincides with decades of programs, medical guides and investments to prevent falls that, despite the efforts, have failed to reverse the trend.
Drugs as a trigger. Epidemiologist Thomas Farley holds that differentiates it with countries like Japan or Europe lies in the high medication of the greatest Americans. Points to the called Frids (“Fall Risk Drugs”), a group that includes benzodiazepines, opioids, antidepressants, gabapentin, certain classic heart and antihistamine medications such as diphenhydramine.
These drugs induce sleepiness, dizziness or weakness, and are linked to 50–75% more falls in the elderly. His proliferation, in his opinion, explains why deaths multiplied without other factors, such as loss of mobility, poor vision or risk risks, have worsened in the same proportion.
Other factors. Other specialists like Thomas Gill and Neil Alexander Matizan In the New York Times That vision. They point out that before death certificates used to attribute the death of elders to heart failure or other ailments, minimizing the role of falls. Today Document betterwhich increases statistics.
In addition, medicine prolongs the lives of people with chronic diseases and multiple disabilities, making the current cohort of over 85 years Be more fragile than that of thirty years ago. That accumulated fragility could partly explain why they survive less after a fall. Also, although the use of opioid and benzodiazepines has decreased or stabilized, they have The prescriptions are grown of antidepressants and gabapentin, which maintains the pharmacological exposure.
The urgency of the “discomfort.” Before the consensus that drugs play a key role, the emerging strategy It is the “discomfort”: Review and remove unnecessary medication or adjust doses to reduce risks. Networks like the US depressal recordch network They insist that it is easy to prescribe, but difficult to remove treatments once established, by clinical inertia and patient resistance.
The list Beers Criteria I already recommend alternative therapiesas cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia, physiotherapy, exercise and psychological approaches for pain, instead of powerful anxiolytic or analgesics.
Samurai discipline to the rescue. In parallel to the numbers of the United States, Un work from the University of Tohoku revealed that The re-hoa traditional Japanese practice associated with the samurai that consists of slow and controlled movements of sitting, rising and walking, can significantly improve the strength of the knees and reduce the risk of falls in seniors.
In just three months, adults who made this routine for five minutes a day, four times a week, increased on average 25.9% Its knee extension force, compared to 2.5% of the control group. The method, which does not require equipment and minimizes risks of injury, is raised as an accessible alternative to combat the loss of muscle mass and the fragility of age, combining physical benefits with the cultural value of an ancestral tradition adapted to the challenges of modern health.
Preventable tragedy. Be that as it may, each fall that causes fractures, brain injuries or dependence is a devastating event that alters lives and generates huge costs. The paradox is that many of these deaths They could be prevented with a more rigorous control of the prescription and with programs that prioritize non -pharmacological interventions.
The key, in the case of the United States, points to patients and caregivers demanding their doctors Check the treatments and raise alternatives, because often that conversation does not happen. The increase in deaths from falls in the elderly, far from being an inevitable consequence of aging, reflects failures in the care model and opens an urgency: to balance the extension of life with the quality and safety of those years won.
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