Older men who are taking certain common medications have a higher risk of suffering a serious fall, a major new Irish study has found.

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin (TCD), St James's Hospital in Dublin and three UK universities described the link as significant.

They focused on the effects of many medicines that are commonly prescribed to older people for health issues such as depression, insomnia, bladder problems and respiratory problems.

These medicines all have anti-cholinergic effects. They affect the brain by blocking an important chemical, called acetycholine, which is involved in the passing of messages between nerve cells. However, this can lead to side-effects such as confusion, blurred vision, an increased heart rate and sedation.

Previous research has found that taking multiple anti-cholinergic medicines can impact cognitive function and mortality. As part of this latest study, the scientists focused on whether taking these medicines increased the risk of a serious fall, resulting in an injury, in people over the age of 65.

They used data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) - an ongoing study of people in Ireland who are over the age of 50. Using this data, they assessed how many medications people were taking and the number and types of falls experienced.

They found that older men who were taking anti-cholinergic medicines were more than twice as likely to experience a fall that resulted in an injury.

The results stood even when other risk factors were taken into account.

The more anti-cholinergic medicines were used, the greater the risk. However, no such link was found in older women.

"Our findings indicate the importance for doctors, pharmacists and healthcare professionals to regularly review the appropriateness of medications taken by their older patients. It is however, important that people don't stop taking any medications before speaking with their GP.

"It is not fully clear why the same link was not found in women and further research is needed to explore this and the reasons behind the findings in men," commented the study's lead author, Dr Kathryn Richardson, a former PhD student at TCD, who is now with the University of East Anglia in the UK.

She pointed out that falls can have a ‘devastating impact' on older people's lives.

"It is a major contributor to care home admission and hospitalisation, so it is vitally important for us to find ways to reduce the risk of falls or their severity," she noted.

This view was backed up by study senior author and principal investigator of TILDA, Prof Rose Anne Kenny, who said that falls are ‘one of the leading causes of loss of independence as people get older'.

"Falls are the principal reason given for admission into nursing home care in Europe. If early risk factors are identified and modified, falls can be prevented. This paper highlights important new risk factors for falls," she said.

Details of these findings are published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.