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From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Adverse drug events are more common in older adults because they are prescribed more drugs and are effected differently by these drugs than their younger counterparts.

A review article written by Tufts University School of Medicine clinicians, published in American Family Physician, summarizes steps that physicians and other healthcare providers can take to avoid overuse, misuse, and underuse of medication in older adults.

"About one in three older persons taking at least five medications will experience an adverse drug event each year, and about two-thirds of these patients will require medical attention.

Approximately 95 percent of these reactions are predictable, and about 28 percent are preventable," cite the authors, Cung Pham, MD, fellow in the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency at Cambridge Health Alliance's Malden Family Medicine Center, and Robert Dickman, MD, Jaharis Family Chair of Family Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Pham and Dickman summarize interventions for reducing inappropriate prescriptions as follows, while noting that there is limited research to support clear interventions.

Polymedicine describes the use of an increasing number of drugs related to an increasing number of medical problems, while polypharmacy is defined as inappropriate use of multiple drugs.

"Much drug therapy in older adults is to prevent illnesses by decreasing risks that will never affect them," writes Allen Shaughnessy, PharmD, associate director of the Tufts University Family Medicine Residency, in an accompanying editorial.

Tufts University School of Medicine and the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University are international leaders in innovative medical education and advanced research.

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