Polypharmacy

Medications has an important role to manage and treat chronic diseases, alleviate and pain and improve quality of life especially to the geriatric health care. Due to their multiple pathologies, elderly patients are prescribed with multiple medications that they concomitant use. Increasing number of elderly patients have multiple morbidities. Because of this reason, they are treated with a vast array of medications. Polypharmacy, a common and important problem related to drug use, occurs in the elderly in all populations. Due to their multiple medication intake, adverse drug reactions and interactions can pose a health risk to the geriatric patients. The occurrence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) increases with advancement of age. Twice as many
The common serious ADRs include falls, orthostatic hypotension, heart failure, and delirium. The most common causes of death resulting from ADR as cited by Pretorius et al are gastrointestinal or intracranial bleeding and renal failure. Medications for pain such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, medications for diabetes, antithrombotic medications, and diuretics are some of the most preventable hospital adverse drug reactions observed. As previously cited by Routledge et al, more than half of ADRs causing admission or occurring in the hospital are type A in nature. Dose related ADRs are classified as Type. It is an ‘accentuation’ of the known pharmacological effect of the drug, which can be predicted and avoidable or prevented. Effort to reduce the incidence of medication related adverse events have been one of the tasks by the healthcare team in all age groups. ADRs can result to prolonged hospitalization and can lead to permanent disability or even death. Khan noted that the in-hospital incident ADRs causes a dramatic 9% increase in length of stay and a 20% notifiable increase in cost of care encompassing bed consumption, laboratory and treatment cost. In the hospital settings, ADRs are common and can be