Polypharmacy, defined as regular use of at least five medications, is common in older adults and younger at-risk populations and increases the risk of adverse medical outcomes. There are several risk factors that can lead to polypharmacy.
What causes polypharmacy?
Polypharmacy can be caused by a variety of factors including: Self-medicating without an accurate understanding of effects and reactions. Patients being prescribed multiple medications by health professionals who are not aware of other parties involved.
What is the major risk of polypharmacy for the older adults?
There is some evidence, mostly from observational studies, that polypharmacy in older adults is associated with a number of negative health outcomes such as decreased functional and cognitive health status, increased risk of falls, adverse drug events, hospitalisations, and mortality.
What is the most common medication problem in the elderly?
Warfarin is one of the most common causes of medication-related hospitalizations in older adults. To reduce the risk of serious problems, one may need to apply extra care in monitoring warfarin effect (via the prothrombin blood test) and extra care in checking for interactions when a new drug is prescribed.
What can you do to prevent the detrimental effects of polypharmacy in the elderly?
Conducting medication reconciliations at care transition, eliminating duplicate medications, assessing for drug-drug interactions, and reviewing dosages can reduce the incidence of polypharmacy, ensure patient safety, reduce hospitalizations, and decrease associated costs.
Is polypharmacy always bad?
Polypharmacy is often considered to be undesirable. The present study demonstrates that polypharmacy is common and that it is associated with unplanned hospitalization.
What are the dangers associated with polypharmacy?
Polypharmacy is associated with increases in many adverse outcomes including adverse drug reactions, drug to drug interactions, drug to disease interactions, non‐adherence, falls, cognitive impairment, hospital admission and mortality .
What are the dangers of polypharmacy?
Inappropriate polypharmacy — the use of excessive or unnecessary medications — increases the risk of adverse drug effects, including falls and cognitive impairment, harmful drug interactions, and drug-disease interactions, in which a medication prescribed to treat one condition worsens another or causes a new one.
How can I help elderly with polypharmacy?
Tips for Avoiding Polypharmacy Issues in Older Adults
- Work diligently with patients and families to secure an accurate list of medications. …
- Reorganize the medication list in a patient’s EHR. …
- Look for inappropriate and incorrect prescriptions. …
- Use caution when deprescribing medications.
What are the 2 risks or problems associated with polypharmacy taking multiple medication in old age?
Unfortunately, there are many negative consequences associated with polypharmacy. , Specifically, the burden of taking multiple medications has been associated with greater health care costs and an increased risk of adverse drug events (ADEs), drug-interactions, medication non-adherence, reduced functional capacity and …
What is the most important cause of adverse drug reactions in older adults?
Increased Sensitivity to Many Drugs: The problems of decreased body size, altered body composition (more fat, less water), and decreased liver and kidney function cause many drugs to accumulate in older people’s bodies at dangerously higher levels and for longer times than in younger people.
How do you know you have polypharmacy?
Clinically, the criteria utilized for identifying polypharmacy involve the following:
- Taking medications that have no apparent indication.
- Using therapeutic equivalents to treat the same illness.
- Concurrent usage of interacting medications.
- Using an inappropriate dosage.
Why do the elderly have different responses to medication?
These physiological changes include increased body fat, decreased body water, decreased muscle mass, and changes in renal and liver function and in the Central Nervous System. These changes can cause adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in older people.
What percentage of elderly patients use 10 or more medications?
Scope of Medication Overload
More than four in ten older adults take five or more prescription medications a day, tripling over the past two decades. Nearly 20 percent take ten drugs or more.
How does polypharmacy affect quality of life?
Polypharmacy is associated with poor health outcomes, including medication non-adherence, adverse drug effects, and worse quality of life in elderly population- and primary care-based cohorts.
What is excessive polypharmacy?
The WHO defines polypharmacy as “the administration of many drugs at the same time or the administration of an excessive number of drugs” . Excessive polypharmacy (EPP) is defined as the concomitant use of nine/ten or more medicines taken regularly or as-needed .
What is an example of polypharmacy?
An example of a polypharmacy definition which recognised the use of appropriate and inappropriate medications is “polypharmacy ranges from the use of a large number of medications, to the use of potentially inappropriate medications, medication underuse and duplication” and “potentially inappropriate medications” …
How do you manage polypharmacy?
A Pharmacist’s Tips on Polypharmacy Management
- Visually inspect patient’s medications at every visit.
- Perform medication reconciliation. …
- Identify drug interactions, fall risk medications, swallowing risk medications.
- Ask about over-the-counter medications and herbal supplements.
What is the best anti anxiety medication for elderly?
Buspirone is an anti-anxiety drug that has been shown to be effective for older adults. Benzodiazepines, another anti-anxiety drug, are effective but should be prescribed carefully to older adults because of risk of memory impairment, unsteadiness, and falls.
Why is taking multiple medications a problem for the elderly?
Elderly people are at a greater risk for adverse drug reactions (ADRs) because of the metabolic changes and reduced drug clearance associated with ageing; this risk is furthermore exacerbated by increasing the number of drugs used. Potential of drug-drug interactions is further increased by use of multiple drugs.
What is the safest blood pressure medicine for the elderly?
Angiotensin Receptor Blockers
ARBs are considered the alternative first-line treatment for hypertension in the elderly population when a diuretic is contraindicated. In elderly hypertensive patients with diabetes or HF, ARBs are considered first-line treatment and an alternative to ACE inhibitors.
What should you do if a patient has adverse drug reaction?
Call 911 and go to the emergency department, even if the shot improved symptoms. Do not drive yourself. Bring the used epinephrine shot with you.
Which is the most common type of drug interaction?
pharmacokinetic – defined as an alteration in the absorption, distribution, metabolism or excretion of one drug by another. This is the most common type of drug interaction. pharmacodynamic – where the drug affects the action or effect of the other drug.