Approximately 30% of patients 65 years of age or older are prescribed five or more drugs.
Nearly 40% of adult 65 years or older and 50% of those 80 years or older are using five or more prescription medications.
Polypharmacy about 35% of US adults age 60-79years use five or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days.
Polypharmacy defined generally as greater than five regularly prescribed drugs.
Polypharmacy is associated with the increase in comorbidities with age, prescribing cascades with the initiation of medication to treat adverse effects of another medication, and care fragmentation across multiple specialists.
Polypharmacy is associated with increased risk of adverse events in older people due to their physiologic changes that alter to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic drug responses.
Approximately one drug in five commonly used in older people may be inappropriate, and increases to one in three among those living in senior facilities.
Adverse events from prescription medications are often implicated in emergency department visits and hospitalizations.
Many commonly used prescription drugs, including hormonal contraceptives and beta blockers, are associated with increased risk of depression.Hyper polypharmacy refers to the use of 10 or more medications.
Has a multiplicity of negatives associated with geriatric polypharmacy including: large numbers of adverse events, potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions, increase morbidity and mortality directly related to excessive consumption of multiple drug products, increased cognitive dysfunction and urinary incontinence, increase balance problems with risk of increased risk for falls.
Among nursing home patients with advanced dementia more than half receive at least one drug with questionable benefit.
Approximately 50% of hospitalized with ambulatory care patients or nursing home residents receive one or more unnecessary drugs.
The number of drugs taken is the single most important predictor of harm from polypharmacy.
Deprescribing refers to the process of identifying and discontinuing drugs in which existing or potential harms outway benefits in the context of an individual patient’s care.
In the last year of life number of medications increases by 50%.
Adherence to all medications decreases steadily with increasing number of drugs prescribed.
Depressions and dementia significantly lower drug adherence rates.