Older arthritic patients taking opioids may face increased risk of bone fracture, heart attack, death.
The New York Times(12/14, B3, Meier) reports, "Older patients with arthritis who take narcotic-based drugs to relieve pain face a higher risk of bone fracture, heart attack and death when compared to those taking non-narcotic drugs, according to" research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. "The use of narcotic painkillers has increased in recent years because of a prevailing belief that such drugs were safer for older patients than non-narcotic drugs like" ibuprofen. However, "the review, financed by the federal Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research, appears to undercut that assumption."