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(Reuters Health) – A new US study suggests that many elderly drivers take several medications that may increase the risk of a car accident.
Researchers found that half of older drivers surveyed by the AAA Foundation for Road Safety were taking at least seven drugs and a quarter, at least eleven.
And nearly one in five were taking medications that the American Geriatrics Society called potentially inappropriate medications, or MIPs. According to the society, older people should avoid these drugs because they have very limited benefits, excessive harm, or both.
Most of these PIDs, including benzodiazepines and some antihistamines, have been shown to cause deficiencies, such as blurred vision, confusion, fatigue, or loss of coordination. Other research has shown that these drugs can increase the risk of an accident by 30%, stress the researchers of the AAA Foundation in their report.
Currently, 42 million adults aged 65 and over drive on US roads and their numbers are expected to increase dramatically over the next decade, according to AAA.
"The good news is that a lot can be done about it," said Jake Nelson, Director of Research and Advocacy on Traffic Safety at AAA. "By working hand in hand with healthcare providers and pharmacists, we can mitigate risk by allowing older drivers to take the medications they need while allowing them to drive safely." The bad news is that patients do not have the necessary conversations with their doctors and pharmacists. "
In fact, an earlier study had found that "when it was a question of driving behavior with older members, 83% said they never had a conversation," said Tara Kelley-Baker, manager of the data and information group at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington, DC. Another previous study found that fewer than two in ten older patients reported receiving a warning from health care providers about how their prescriptions might affect their behavior.
For the new report, AAA researchers and study sites from five states badyzed data from 2,949 seniors participating in the AAA LongROAD study. At the time of registration, the elderly were between the ages of 65 and 79 and asked to put all their medications, including vitamins and supplements and over-the-counter medications, in a bag and make them available. examine.
Participants brought a total of 24,690 medications to the exam sessions. Overall, while 3% of participants did not take any medication and 10% took two or less, 10% took 16 or more, and 1% took 26 or more.
Seventy-three percent of participants took at least one medicine for heart disease and 70%, a drug that affects the central nervous system.
Researchers were particularly concerned about potentially inappropriate medications for the elderly, including drugs that impair physical or mental function, such as narcotic badgesics, anti-anxiety medications such as benzodiazepines and sleeping pills. In addition to the potential negative effects on driving ability, these medications are also badociated with side effects such as hip fractures, depression and incontinence.
The researchers also noted that a senior's risk of falling was 6 times higher if they used 10 or more drugs.
The result of this study "confirms the suspicions of many internists and geriatricians," said Dr. Zaldy Tan, deputy chief of geriatric medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles .
The problem lies largely in the fact that older people often consult several doctors, said Tan, who did not participate in the new research. Their doctors often ignore all the medicines a patient takes, but only those they have prescribed themselves.
Tan suggests to elderly patients to bring to their doctor's care a list of all their medications, as well as the reason why each has been prescribed. "If they take more than 10, I would start looking very carefully to see if any of them can be removed," Tan said.
The foundation also offers a website (www.roadwiserx.com) where users can check the effects and interactions of the medications they take.
SOURCE: bit.ly/2P4lr0x AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, online November 28, 2018.
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