This Washington Post article is about the risks of polypharmacy — taking multiple medications — among the elderly, especially during and after a hospital stay. The two angles of this particular article are that lots of medication is administered at the hospital that may not be needed, and patients bring home medication from the hospital (“souvenirs”) that may not need to be continued.
Some key excerpts from the article in today’s paper:
* “Older adults account for about 35 percent of all hospital stays but more than half of the visits that are marred by drug-related complications, according to a 2014 action plan by the Department of Health and Human Services. Such complications add about three days to the average stay, the agency said.”
* “Even if a drug doesn’t cause an adverse reaction, that doesn’t mean the patient needs it. A study of Veterans Affairs hospitals showed that 44 percent of frail elderly patients were given at least one unnecessary drug at discharge.”
* “Some drugs prescribed in the hospital are intended to treat the acute illnesses for which the patients were admitted; others are to prevent problems such as nausea and blood clots. Still others are meant to control side effects of the original medications.”
* “A 2013 study found that nearly a fifth of patients discharged from the hospital had prescription-related medical complications during their first 45 days at home. About 35 percent of those complications were preventable, and 5 percent were life-threatening.”
* A geriatric pharmacist working at a UCLA hospital “tries to answer several questions to determine what’s best for a patient. Is the drug needed? Is the dose right? Is it going to cause a problem?”
* “One of [the pharmacist’s] go-to references is known as the Beers list, a compilation of medications that are potentially harmful for older patients. The list, named for the doctor who created it and produced by the American Geriatrics Society, includes dozens of medications, including some antidepressants and antipsychotics.
Link to the Beers list
Access is free but you do have to register for online access.
Here’s a link to the Washington Post article:
Health & Science
‘America’s other drug problem’: Giving the elderly too many prescriptions
Washington Post
By Anna Gorman
August 15, 2016 at 3:51 PM
Robin