Reducing Falls in Residents With Dementia by Reducing Psychotropic Medication Use: Does It Work?

•Neuropsychiatric symptoms of dementia require nonpharmacologic interventions.•Medication reviews completed by the nurse practitioner, in collaboration with staff, are effective.•Decreasing psychotropic medications does not necessarily decrease falls.

Falls in elderly patients with dementia are common and a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. Psychotropic medications used to treat dementia are discouraged and may contribute to patient falls. Evidence-based clinical guidelines for appropriate antipsychotic use in this population exist. A nurse practitioner-led team used evidence-based tools to reduce psychotropic medication use in residents with dementia on a memory care unit and evaluated the effect on patient falls. Despite evidence linking falls to psychotropic medications, a reduction in resident falls was not found.