November 2012 · Vol. 61, No. 11: 652-661AGING: Is your patient taking too many pills?
Before you prescribe another drug, consider whether new symptoms might be caused by the medications the patient is already taking.
Barry
D.
Weiss,
MDArizona Center on Aging, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson
bdweiss@email.arizona.edu Jeannie
K.
Lee,
PharmD, BCPSArizona Center on Aging, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Science, University of Arizona College of Pharmacy, Tucson
|
PRACTICE RECOMMENDATIONS
• Consider the possibility that an adverse drug effect—rather than a new condition—is at play when a patient taking multiple medications develops a new symptom. C
• Use an online interaction checker, which can be accessed via a smart phone or tablet, to check for potential drug-drug interactions in patients on multiple medications. C
• Cross-check patients’ medications with a list of their medical problems, with the goal of discontinuing any drug that duplicates the action of another or is age-inappropriate, ineffective, or not indicated for the condition for which it was prescribed. C
Strength of recommendation (SOR)
A Good-quality patient-oriented evidence
B Inconsistent or limited-quality patient-oriented evidence
C Consensus, usual practice, opinion, disease-oriented evidence, case series
|
The authors reported no potential conflict of interest relevant to this article.
Older adults are taking more medications than ever before. Nearly 9 out of 10 US residents who are 60 years of age or older take at least one prescription drug, more than a third take 5 to 9 medications, and 12% take 10 or more.1The increase is largely driven by newer medications to effectively treat a variety of medical conditions, and by practice guidelines that often recommend multidrug regimens.2
|
