The entire thing was iatrogenic*

Are falls preventable? Here’s a case of inappropriate care by the medical community that caused them. Note my friend–even as a doctor–was unable to get the proper care for her mother:

I have to tell you about my 93 year old mom:

For years at the nursing home they kept adding blood pressure medicines to treat her recalcitrant blood pressure. She was falling more than once a day, disoriented and largely wheelchair bound since the staff found using the chair prevented falls. (They would wheel her to meals, etc.) She spent most of her days in bed.

Shortly before she moved to the dementia unit the doctor came to see her and said she was on too much blood pressure medication.  He noted that old people needed higher pressures, something I had been trying to tell her previous doctors for a couple of years.

Bottom line–he stops all but one blood pressure medication. I ask them to put her on an antidepressant, and she is now walking around without even a walker. We even took her to IHOP and the grocery store and she had more stamina than ever before. She is happy. 

The entire thing was iatrogenic! 
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*Definition:  Induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures.