Year: 2019
Type: report
Abstract: Every day, 750 older people living in the United States (age 65 and older) are hospitalized due to serious side effects from one or more medications.1 Over the last decade, older people sought medical treatment or visited the emergency room more than 35 million times for adverse drug events, and there were more than 2 million hospital admissions for serious adverse drug events (see Appendix A, p. 40). 2 Older adults are hospitalized for adverse drug events at a greater rate than the general population is hospitalized for opioids.3 In the past decade, prescribing multiple medications to individual patients (called "polypharmacy" in the scientific literature) has reached epidemic proportions.More than four in ten older adults take five or more prescription medications a day, an increase of 300 percent over the past two decades.4 Nearly 20 percent take ten drugs or more.When over-thecounter medications and supplements are included, the number of older people taking five or more drugs rises to 67 percent.5 Medications have improved the lives of individuals around the world, and many patients benefit from taking multiple drugs.Indeed, polypharmacy may be necessary for people who have more than one chronic disease.However, taking multiple medications also greatly increases a person's risk of suffering a serious, sometimes life-threatening side effect.Over the past few decades, medication use in the U.S., especially for older people, has gone far beyond necessary polypharmacy, to the point where millions are overloaded with too many prescriptions and are experiencing significant harm as a result. Medication Overload: Understanding the Scope and Impact* An adverse drug reaction is defined as a negative reaction from use of a medication as prescribed.Adverse drug events include adverse drug reactions, but also include negative effects from non-regular use of a medication, such as medication errors and overdoses.
DOI: 10.46241/li.wouk3548
Authors: Judith Garber, Shannon Brownlee
Language: English
Subfield: Geriatrics and Gerontology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W3037026771