February 12, 2015
Blurb
The word “benzodiazepines” and the phrase “widely prescribed for anxiety and insomnia” appear together so frequently that they may remind you of the apparently unbreakable connection between “powerful” and “House Ways and Means Committee.”
But now we have a better sense of just how widely prescribed these medications are. A study in this month’s JAMA Psychiatry reports that among 65- to 80-year-old Americans, close to 9 percent use one of these sedative-hypnotics, drugs like Valium, Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin. Among older women, nearly 11 percent take them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/health/continued-questions-on-benzodiazepine-use-in-older-patients.html?ref=health
But now we have a better sense of just how widely prescribed these medications are. A study in this month’s JAMA Psychiatry reports that among 65- to 80-year-old Americans, close to 9 percent use one of these sedative-hypnotics, drugs like Valium, Xanax, Ativan and Klonopin. Among older women, nearly 11 percent take them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/13/health/continued-questions-on-benzodiazepine-use-in-older-patients.html?ref=health