POLYPHARMACY

The Effects of Polypharmacy on the Elderly

The Effects of Polypharmacy on the Elderly

Thesis Statement

This research papers aims at finding the impacts of the polypharmacy on the elderly people due to the heavy usage of drugs and other reasons.

Introduction

Polypharmacy easily entails utilizing too many drugs. By conference, it mentions to a persevering being on more than three drugs. The risk of unsafe drug happenings in elderly patients increases exponentially with the expanding number of prescribed and non prescribed drugs. These harmful drug happenings, according to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report, are foremost suppliers to crisis room visits and hospitalizations in the elderly. The harmful happenings, in part, contemplate harmful drug-drug, drug-disease, and drug-diet interactions. (Gurwitz 2003)

These interactions are more probable to happen with multiple medications in elderly patients with multiple comorbidities and age-related down turn in drug-metabolizing capacity. In most situations, the added drugs are possibly unsuitable because they are unnecessary, ineffective, or even counteractive to other drugs. However, polypharmacy, in exact clinical situation, can furthermore be befitting and beneficial to persevering care. Therefore, it is significant for clinicians to identify when polypharmacy is harmful and when it is appropriate. (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

Several components assist to polypharmacy amidst patients over age 65. Clinicians may be recommending more medicines for their aged patients than they have in the past easily because there are more medicines available for healing these patients. The breakthrough of a very wide variety of medicines for a wide kind of situation has assisted numerous patients. Unfortunately, this new development has furthermore directed to both overuse and unsuitable use of prescription medications. (license.icopyright.net)

Many medicines that were once obtainable only with a prescription, such as Prilosec (omeprazole) and Claritin (loratidine), are now readily available over the counter, and their use is on the rise. In supplement, complementary and alternate medicines, such as herbal therapies, are evolving progressively well liked amidst all patients, including the elderly. (prescriptions.uchicago.edu)

Harmful Poly-Pharmacy

The two kinds of polypharmacy are harmful poly-pharmacy and befitting polypharmacy

 The determinants of harmful polypharmacy are

a) Prescribing cascade,

b)      malfunction to address nondrug advances,

c)      malfunction to stop a pharmaceutical when the foremost suggestion no longer inhabits, and

d) Polydoctors and polypharmacists.

 

Prescribing Cascade

Prescribing cascade is a widespread clinical scenario whereby the clinician prescribes a second drug to heal the edge consequences of the first drug for which suggestion is often unclear. This is pursued by a third drug to heal the edge consequences of the second drug, and so the cascade of incremental prescribing continues. To show this issue, address the case of “Mr. A,” a wholesome and purposeful 79-year-old man travelling to his medical practitioner for a yearly checkup (Williams 2002):

1. Mr. A has a blood pressure of 140/85. “I seem great,” he says.

2. He obtains amlodipine (5 milligrams [mg], one time daily) for high body-fluid pressure.

3. He then evolves distended feet, a widespread edge result of amlodipine.

4. He then obtains furosemide and potassium for the swelling.

5. The potassium tablets then aggravate his ...