Elderly Left in Dark on Sleep Drugs Danger 

By Amy Corderoy, The Sydney Morning Herald

November 2, 2010 

Australia

Sleeping medication that is linked to falls and fractures is still being taken by many elderly people, a study of patients from a Sydney hospital has found.

The tablets may be responsible for hundreds of deaths a year, yet an audit of patients treated for falls at a Royal North Shore Hospital clinic found more than one in five were taking them when they were admitted.

Many elderly people experience sleeping problems and ask their GPs to prescribe the drugs - known as benzodiazepines - and a similar type usually called ''nonbenzodiazapines'', the study's co-author, Connie Vogler, said.

"It is not widely known in the community that these drugs are linked with falls and memory problems and so it is often difficult to convince older people to gradually stop taking them," said Dr Vogler, who is a staff specialist geriatrician at the hospital.

The tablets double the risk of older people falling and breaking bones. Fractures can take months to recover from and can lead to premature death. The drugs also cause difficulty thinking and remembering, are highly addictive and cease working if they are taken for a long time.

When patients were told to cut down or stop using the drugs about two-thirds successfully did so, Dr Vogler wrote in the journal Drugs & Aging. The potential for withdrawal symptoms after stopping meant patients should not do so without a doctor's help, she said.

Some patients had been taking the drugs for up to 30 years even though they stop helping a person sleep within two years of use.

The director of the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing at the University of Sydney, David Le Couteur, said hundreds of deaths a year nationwide were linked to the drugs.

"And 10 per cent of hip fractures in Australia are directly due to benzodiazepines, so we could reduce hip fractures by 10 per cent just by taking people off drugs which they don't need anyway," he said.

Professor Le Couteur said that poor sleep was common in older age but could not be cured with medication.

"A lot of things get worse as you get older and sleep is just one of them," he said.

"We don't have a tablet that gives you the power to run 1500 meters like you could when you were 20 and we don't have a tablet that lets you sleep like you did when you were 20."

But patients were reluctant to believe this and if their GP refused to prescribe the drugs they looked for another doctor, he said.

He suggested Medicare subsidies for the drugs be limited to a single prescription or restrictions on their prescription could be put in place.

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