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Addiction to Benzodiazepines— How Common?
Roland Grad, MD
McGill University Montreal, Quebec
Arch Fam Med. 1996;5(7):384.
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In a recent article1 on addiction to benzodiazepines, the author reported the absence of data linking this drug class to "significant tissue or organ morbidity" and cited a 1983 article as his first reference.
Although earlier literature may have suggested that benzodiazepines are relatively safe drugs (as compared with the barbiturates), there is now a body of observational research suggesting that safety is an important problem for subgroups such as elderly patients. For example, an association between benzodiazepines and adverse events such as falls, hip fracture, cognitive impairment, and motor vehicle crash has been demonstrated in elderly patients.2-10
I agree with the author's comment that it may be difficult to weigh the benefits and risks of drug therapy and that such analyses involve value judgments. However, to promote informed decision making, clinicians should be aware that certain subgroups of patients, such as elderly users of benzodiazepines, may
. . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]
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