Drug Therapy for the Elderly [Paperback]

With people aged 65 years and older currently making up the fastest growing age group throughout the world, the demographic revolution of an aging society will inevitably lead to increased pressure to develop a rationalistic and age-tailored process of diagnosis and treatment among the elderly. As aging people often suffer from several chronic diseases and are being treated with multiple medications concurrently, unwanted drug interactions occur more frequently.

Whereas recent approaches have recommended to remove particular drugs from the medication regimen to avoid adverse effects, Drug Therapy for the Elderly underlines both indispensable and dispensable elements of drug treatment in order to provide an overall assessment of drugs suitable for the aged. In view of the multimorbidity and polypharmacy situations experienced by elderly patients, this book takes into account the special needs and requirements shown by this group, thus serving as a timely reference for physicians who treat the elderly.??

With the potential for undesirable drug interactions rising along with the size of the elderly population, this book underlines both indispensable and dispensable elements of drug treatment to provide an overall assessment of drugs suitable for the aged.

Elderly people are the main drug consumers in Western societies, as multimorbidity seems to justify a high load of drugs to be supplied to them. People above 65 years of age take an average of five drugs, and this figure increases to almost ten drugs at the age of 75. Serious adverse events (SAE) related to drug use are considered to lead to 100,000 deaths per year in the United States. The primary motivation of doctors resulting in polypharmacy is the treatment of all diagnoses according to the guidelines which recommend three drugs per disease, on average. The mean number of diagnoses at age 80+ is 3.3, leading to ten drugs l#¶