(from WebMD, November 29, 2016)
Hospital E-Prescribing: Trouble for Older Adults?
by Kathleen Doheny
TUESDAY, Nov. 29, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Preprogrammed doses of medications that can raise the risk of falls are often set too high for older hospital patients, new research shows.
In the study, doctors looked at the records of 287 patients over the age of 65 who fell while staying in a large urban hospital. Some patients fell more than once, adding to a total of 328 falls in the study. Of those falls, 62 percent occurred in patients who had been given at least one high-risk medication in the 24 hours before their fall.
Of that 62 percent, 16 percent had been given two high-risk medicines, while another 16 percent had been given three or more.
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However, the research does suggest that dosages matter and that reducing the default dose for vulnerable patients might be an easy way to lower the risk of falls.
Dr. Josh Peterson, an associate professor of medicine and biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, said the new findings build on previous research that suggests the default dosing system sometimes needs to be tweaked.
Read the complete story at WebMD.