This expert consensus should provide prescribers with an epidemiological tool, a guideline and a list of alternative therapies.

ObjectivePolypharmacy is the concomitant use of several drugs by a single person, and it increases the risk of adverse drug-related events in older adults. Little is known about the epidemiology of polypharmacy at the population level. We aimed to measure the prevalence and incidence of polypharmacy and to investigate the associated factors.MethodsA prospective cohort study was conducted using register data with national coverage in Sweden. A total of 1,742,336 individuals aged ≥65 years at baseline (November 1, 2010) were included and followed until death or the end of the study (December 20, 2013).ResultsOn average, individuals were exposed to 4.6 (SD =4.0) drugs at baseline. The prevalence of polypharmacy (5+ drugs) was 44.0%, and the prevalence of excessive polypharmacy (10+ drugs) was 11.7%. The incidence rate of polypharmacy among individuals without polypharmacy at baseline was 19.9 per 100 person-years, ranging from 16.8% in individuals aged 65–74 years to 33.2% in those aged ≥95 years (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] =1.49, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.42–1.56). The incidence rate of excessive polypharmacy was 8.0 per 100 person-years. Older adults using multi-dose dispensing were at significantly higher risk of developing incident polypharmacy compared with those receiving ordinary prescriptions (HR =1.51, 95% CI 1.47–1.55). When adjusting for confounders, living in nursing home was found to be associated with lower risks of incident polypharmacy and incident excessive polypharmacy (HR =0.79 and HR =0.86, p<0.001, respectively).ConclusionThe prevalence and incidence of polypharmacy are high among older adults in Sweden. Interventions aimed at reducing the prevalence of polypharmacy should also target potential incident polypharmacy users as they are the ones who fuel future polypharmacy.

This systematic review shows that almost one-half of nursing home residents are exposed to potentially inappropriate medications and suggests an increase prevalence over time. Effective interventions to optimize drug prescribing in nursing home facilities are, therefore, needed.

What is already known about this subject • Several studies have shown that inappropriate medications induce adverse health outcomes in the elderly. • The hypothesis of Beers et al. that these inappropriate medications increase the likelihood of adverse drug reactions is debated and checked in patients admitted to hospital. What this study adds • Inappropriate medications do not seem to be the major cause of adverse drug reactions in the elderly. • More than the inappropriateness of the drugs themselves, it is the inappropriate use of drugs that is to be tackled when treating the elderly. • The main preventable factor is the reduction in the number of drugs given. Aim To study the occurrence of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) linked to inappropriate medication (IM) use in elderly people admitted to an acute medical geriatric unit. Methods All the elderly people aged ≥ 70 years admitted to the acute medical geriatric unit of Limoges University hospital (France) over a 49‐month period were included, whatever their medical condition. For all the patients, clinical pharmacologists listed the medications given before admission and identified the possible ADRs. The appropriateness of these medications and the causal relationship between drugs (either appropriate or not) and ADRs were evaluated. Results Two thousand and eighteen patients were included. The number of drugs taken was 7.3 ± 3.0 in the patients with ADRs and 6.0 ± 3.0 in those without ADRs (P < 0.0001). Sixty‐six percent of the patients were given at least one IM prior to admission. ADR prevalence was 20.4% among the 1331 patients using IMs and 16.4% among those using only appropriate drugs (P < 0.03). In only 79 of the 1331 IM users (5.9%) were ADRs directly attributable to IMs. The IMs most often involved in patients with ADRs were: anticholinergic antidepressants, cerebral vasodilators, long‐acting benzodiazepines and concomitant use of two or more psychotropic drugs from the same therapeutic class. Using multivariate analysis, after adjusting for confounding factors, IM use was not associated with a significant increased risk of ADRs (odds ratio 1.0, 95% confidence interval 0.8, 1.3). Conclusion Besides a reduction in the number of drugs given to the elderly, a good prescription should involve a reduction in the proportion of IMs and should take into consideration the frailty of these patients.

Hospitalisation in geriatric services results in a reduction in potentially inappropriate medication use. Improved pharmacological education of practitioners, especially with regard to drug adverse effects, is desirable to improve management of geriatric patients.

AIMSThe aim was to investigate the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medication use among older people in Sweden according to five different published sets of explicit criteria from Europe and the US. METHODSThis was a nationwide cross-sectional, register-based study across the whole of Sweden in 2008. All individuals aged 65 years and older were included (n = 1 346 709, both community-dwelling and institutionalized persons). We applied all drug-specific criteria included in the 2012 Beers Criteria, the Laroche's list, the PRISCUS list, the NORGEP criteria and the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare criteria. The main outcome was the potentially inappropriate drug use according to each set of criteria, separately and combined. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to identify individual factors associated with the use of potentially inappropriate drugs. RESULTSThe prevalence of potentially inappropriate medication use varied between the explicit criteria from 16% (NORGEP criteria) to 24% (2012 Beers criteria). Overall, 38% of the older people were exposed to potentially inappropriate drug use by at least one of the five sets of criteria. While controlling for other possible covariates, female gender, institutionalization and polypharmacy were systematically associated with inappropriate drug use, regardless of the set of explicit criteria we considered.

The aging of the world population is a new medical challenge for the 21st century. There has been a striking increase in the proportion of elderly people, especially the very old, over the past decades. The elderly are living longer due, in part, to improved standards of living and the availability of social aid and medical care. Although some people reach a very old age completely free of physical ailments, most elderly people have several chronic diseases. Modern pharmacotherapy can slow down and delay the consequences of these ailments up to the eighth decade of life, but thereafter the complications of these diseases will usually become clinically significant. This often results in the administration of several drugs simultaneously. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2008); 85, 1, 94–97 doi:

The size of the elderly population has been increasing steadily for several years. Individuals in this age group often have several concomitant diseases that require treatment with multiple medications. These drugs, for various reasons and especially as a consequence of potential accumulation, may be associated with adverse reactions. Of the numerous factors that can favour the occurrence of these adverse drug reactions, the most important are the pathophysiological consequences of aging, particularly as these apply to the very old. Although absorption of drugs is not usually reduced in the elderly, diffusion, distribution and particularly elimination decline with age. Furthermore, while hepatic metabolic function is fairly normal, renal function is usually markedly depressed in very old individuals, and this can translate into clinical consequences if it is not taken into account. This is why, before administration of any drug in the elderly, evaluation of glomerular filtration rate is essential. Validated estimations such as those obtained from the classical Cockcroft-Gault formula or from more recent methodologies are required. In addition to reductions in various organ functions, factors connected with very old age such as frailty, falls, abnormal sensitivity to medications and polypathology, all of which tend to be more common in the last years of life, all directly impact on adverse drug reaction occurrence. Given these characteristics of the elderly population, the best way to reduce the prevalence of adverse drug reactions in this group is to limit drug prescription to essential medications, make sure that use of prescribed agents is clearly explained to the patient, give drugs for as short a period as possible, and periodically re-evaluate all use of drugs in the elderly.