Polypharmacy is the use of a large number of prescription drugs, commonly considered to be the intake of five or more. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of elderly patients take five or more medications. Older people take many drugs, including some that can be risky. In some studies, the average number of drugs prescribed to older patients is ten. Drugs can interact with one another and can cause more problems, including falls, fractures, hospitalizations, and delirium.
There are many factors contributing to this problem. People see different physicians for their medical problems and being under the supervision of several specialists is a major reason for polypharmacy. A second factor is that the documentation of why a medication was prescribed initially is regularly missing in the original medical record, making decisions to consider termination of a treatment difficult to make later.
Regular reviews with a doctor of all medications taken is important. A common and risky consequence is increasing adverse drug effects, some which are due to drug interactions with dangerous results.
Renzo J. Bustamante-Wendorff, B.S., M.S.
Research & Development
References: Powell, Tia, MD. Dementia Reimagined, 2019
