As we age, we suffer from different diseases and thus are required to take multiple medications. While this is a part of the natural aging process, the amount of medications elderly take can leave you astonished. People above the age of 65 often take up more than 5 prescribed medications and a 75-year old generally take more than 10 prescribed medicines.

While these drugs are helpful in improving one’s health and well-being, polypharmacy or concurrent use of multiple medications can have an adverse drug reaction.

Is This a Big Problem?

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), seniors above the age of 65 are twice as likely to go to ER for adverse drug reaction as the younger population. Moreover, overmedicated seniors are more likely to experience kidney failure, heart attack, or stroke as well as get misdiagnosed for dementia, depression and other mental health conditions.

In a study, it was found that approximately one in every five seniors had inappropriately written prescriptions. Thus, always make sure to visit an experienced and trustworthy physician. If you can’t visit a doctor, choose in home health care services to avail high-quality elderly care at home. Get in touch with Utah Doctors At Home to know more.

Reasons Why Polypharmacy Happens

There are multiple reasons why polypharmacy happens. Some of them are:

  • Health Problems
    Older adults are more likely to suffer from more than one chronic medical condition. Thus, they may be visiting more than one doctor to treat their health problems. They visit a cardiologist for heart disease, a neurologist for mental health disease, a gastroenterologist for digestive problems so on and so forth.

    As these chronic conditions need to be treated with multiple medications and by multiple doctors, it results in miscommunication or missed communication. Thus, seniors run a high risk of adverse drug reaction.

  • Side Effect or New Symptoms?
    Sometimes, a doctor often treats new symptom a person may be experiencing with a new medicine instead of actually assessing what the symptom is for. Instead of a new symptom, it can be an adverse reaction of polypharmacy. Without actually assessing the situation, a new medicine in the regimen increases the possibility of an adverse reaction to a drug which was not even required.
  • Taken as a Preventive Measure
    Sometimes doctor chooses the “better safe than sorry approach” when prescribing medicines to seniors. For instance, the statin drug is one of the most prescribed medicines in the United States and seniors are more likely to use it than the younger adults.

    The problem here is that for patients as old as 70 years and above there is little to no research which demonstrates that the benefits of statin drug outweigh the risks.

    • The Bottom Line

    It is vital for seniors to protect themselves against adverse drug reactions. Before you book an appointment or before you call your in home health care services provider, make a list of all the medicines you use and their dosage direction. Show the list to the doctor at home and ask your doubts, if you have any.

    Get educated on all the possible side effects of any medicine you are taking. Also, if you think a new symptom is a side effect of a drug you are taking, point it out to the doctor and ask him for the right combination of drugs.

    Don’t be afraid to ask questions to your in home senior care service provider. With Utah Doctors At Home, you can expect to receive everything you would normally receive at your current Medical Doctor’s office. Plus you can reach a practitioner by phone 24/7/365.

    Call 385-247-0050 to know more about admission details!