Elderly southern women were more likely to be prescribed high risk medications than males from New England. This interesting and rather startling statistic was one finding in a recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. High risk medications (HRM) are defined in this article as medications that should avoided in patients over 65 years of age; examples include long acting benzodiazepines, antihistamines and some vasodilators. The researchers included data from over 6 million Medicare Advantage enrollees. Over 21% of these patients had received at least one HRM almost 5% had received at least two. The location with the highest proportion of patients receiving at least one HRM was Albany, Georgia. White race, a low socioeconomic index and low personal income were also risk factors.