Doctors say that having a specific, crucial conversation can help you avoid a life-changing injury.
Every second, an older adult suffers a fall injury, resulting in a total of 37 million falls, three million ER visits, and 41,000 deaths each year, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Even more alarmingly, a 2025 article published in JAMA Health Forum reports that fall injuries among seniors have tripled over the past 30 years, with fall-related deaths rates nearly quadrupling during that same period.
Some risk factors haven’t changed: Vision and hearing impairments, gait changes, reduced muscle strength, and cognitive decline have always made older individuals more likely to experience serious fall injuries. However, experts say that an increase in prescription medications—especially those with fall risk as a known side effect—may account for the recent spike.
In an October 2025 review published in the journal Age and Ageing, a research team mostly hailing from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland gave a closer look to how often falls could be traced back to prescription medications, and how prescriptions are managed after a fall. Because many drugs—especially sedatives, opioids, certain heart medicines, and antidepressants—can impair balance, cause dizziness, or lower blood pressure, reviewing prescriptions after a fall is considered an important part of future prevention.
The researchers searched four major databases, looking for studies in which participants had already fallen and in which “potentially inappropriate prescribing” was reported. “Potentially inappropriate prescribing” included both generally inappropriate medication use and specific “fall-risk increasing drugs.” The team pooled results across studies to estimate how common inappropriate prescribing is in this population.
Ultimately, research showed prescription drugs were indeed linked with fall risk: Across 43 studies, around 69% of those who fell took at least one concerning medication at the time of their incident. In studies that reported the number of inappropriate prescriptions, participants had an average of just over two such medications each. Cardiovascular and psychotropic drugs—the latter category including antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, stimulants, antipsychotics, and mood stabilizers—were among the most common culprits.
Twenty-one of the studies examined whether prescribing changed after the fall. While nine studies found a reduction in inappropriate prescribing, the others showed increases, no change, or mixed outcomes. This is concerning, since the CDC says “falling once doubles your chances of falling again.”
Doctors say that one of the best ways to reduce your risk is to actively review your prescribed medications and share a full list of your prescriptions and supplements with your doctor—they can help identify any potentially hazardous meds or dangerous drug combinations.
Though not affiliated with the study, Michael Steinman, MD, a geriatrician at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-director of the US Deprescribing Research Network, recently told The New York Times: “We know a lot of these drugs can increase falls by 50 to 75 percent” in older patients. He continued: “Ask, ‘Do any of my medications increase the risk of falls? Is there an alternative treatment?’ Being an informed patient or caregiver can put this on the agenda. Otherwise, it might not come up.”
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