For some people antidepressants can be a life saver and help them turn around their lives in ways they might not be able to do on their own. All patients that make the decision to use antidepressants deal with a dizzying array of side effects that can at times make one wonder why they started taking the medication in the first place. It is well noted in many scientific journals and publications that the main reason for people stopping a course of depression medications is the side effects of the antidepressant.

Even when patients and consumers take over the counter medicine, they often find a long list of potential side effects from even the simplest medicine available. The lists can go on and on, but typical side effects for antidepressants and other medications are dry mouth, urinary retention, blurred vision, constipation, sedation, sleep disruption, weight gain, headache, nausea, diarrhea, abdominal pain, loss of libido, agitation, anxiety and a whole long list of many other side effects.

Researchers in Australia and New Zealand have come out with updated information on antidepressants and the elderly patients taking the medications and a peculiar side effect that has been studied before. It seems that when taking antidepressants, elderly patients over the age of 60 years old are more susceptible to falls and getting themselves injured in those falls. This specific study focused on 21,900 patients in the 60 and above age group and studied their use of antidepressants and the occurrence and recurrence of falls within a 12 month period. It was found 24 percent had one fall while on antidepressants, 11 percent reported they injured themselves in the fall and 8 percent of the participants had to get medical attention due to injuries from the fall.

The newest research can be studied with it’s full analysis and abstract at the PLoS ONE Journal here. Another study was released in 2002 by a group of psychiatrists and researchers through the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center and found similar results. You can read the 2002 study here. Although the study completed in 2002 didn’t have has many participants in the study it found a greater percentage of subjects that fell when using antidepressants. When looking at just the first 6 weeks of treatment about half of the participants or 53 percent fell.

With the elderly population it is a a fairly serious problem that the medications that are there to help them are increasing their falling rates. In the cases of falls in elderly individuals, fractures occur because of the fall in 4% of cases, with hip fractures being associated with the highest in mortality rates. Women have a much higher risk of injury from the falls and one statistic from the most recent study stated, “A number of factors interacted to multiply the risk of falls, such that over 60% of women older than 80 years with depression and using an SSRI fall and sustain injury.”

With all of the studies involving the elderly and increased rates in falling and injury due to antidepressants, one thing rings true in most cases. The class of antidepressants that seems to be causing the most problem with falling is the SSRI group of medications. Another direct quote from the study states, “Antidepressant use (particularly SSRIs) was strong associated with falls regardless of presence of depressive symptoms.” This leads to a pretty close conclusion that depression alone is not the cause but the introduction of the SSRI class of antidepressants.

Elderly patients run high rates of depression and the solution is obviously not to take away the antidepressants that may be helping their quality of life. An important piece of information to take away from these studies however is the need for professional evaluation of each elderly person and their increased liability of falling, that could increase their potential for injury or even death. When the elderly population is diagnosed and prescribed antidepressants, efforts should be made to prevent falls and make their surroundings safer to prevent the unfortunate phrase, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”