Key result
Polypharmacy in elderly patients significantly increases the risk of adverse drug reactions, necessitating individualized prescribing and adherence to Beers criteria to optimize safety.
Why the study?
In elderly patients with polymorbidity, polypharmacy reduces treatment effectiveness and increases the risk of adverse reactions.
This review highlights the critical need for rational prescribing and the use of Beers criteria to reduce adverse drug events in elderly patients with polypharmacy.
May warrant medication reviews in elderly polypharmacy; leaves open prospective trials on Beers criteria implementation.
Elderly patients are characterized by the presence of several diseases at once (polymorbidity). This is due to the simultaneous appointment of several drugs (polypharmacy) to such patients. But at the same time, polypharmacy reduces the effectiveness of treatment and increases the risk of adverse reactions. Therefore, it is extremely important to select drugs individually in compliance with the indications and contraindications for their appointment, to take into account the interaction of drugs and the possibility of the drug's influence on concomitant pathology, to use only proven effectiveness and safety drugs, to guide by Beer's criteria, to unexceed the recommended doses, to include in complex therapy metabolic drugs to optimize elderly patients drug therapy.
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Bezrukov et al. (2023) conducted a review in Polypharmacy and polymorbidity. Polypharmacy vs. Appropriate prescribing / fewer medications was evaluated. Polypharmacy in elderly patients significantly increases the risk of adverse drug reactions, necessitating individualized prescribing and adherence to Beers criteria to optimize safety.
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