Polypharmacy, Gait Performance, and Falls in Community-Dwelling Older Adults. Results from the Gait and Brain Study.

Polypharmacy was cross-sectionally associated with poor gait performance and longitudinally associated with gait decline and fall incidence. Despite our use of propensity matching, confounding by indication could have influenced the results. Quantitative spatial gait parameters performance mediated the strength of the association between medications and falls, suggesting a role of gait disturbances in the medication-related falls pathway.