EVALUATION OF POTENTIALLY INAPPROPRIATE MEDICATIONS AND POLYPHARMACY AMONG HOSPITALIZED GERIATRIC PATIENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Dr. Kodepelli Manisha*, Sushma Sudagoni, Sri Harshini Thummula, Soukya Vodnala, Soumya Todupunoori
ABSTRACT
Background: The world's population is rapidly aging. The quality of drug therapy is important to improve the life expectancy of older patients. Polypharmacy is highly prevalent in older patients secondary to the increasing number of co-morbid conditions. Polypharmacy is defined as the "routine use of four or more OTC, prescription, and traditional medications at the same time by a patient", it increases the likelihood of side effects and the risk of interactions between the medications which makes the poor medication adherence. Using potentially inappropriate medications significantly affects mortality and morbidity. The standardization of policies, procedures, and protocol is critical to polypharmacy. If it is done systematically, it will reduce unnecessary drug doses, stoppage of inappropriate drug use, and choose alternative medications to reduce the avoidable medication harm. This comprehensive review is based on literature gathered from the PUB MED database, SCIENCE DIRECT from 2019-to 2021 to identify articles related to polypharmacy and potentially inappropriate medications in the elder population. The terms which are used to search articles were polypharmacy, potentially inappropriate medications, and elder population. Conclusion: This data shows regarding the effects of using polypharmacy and PIMs in elder populations are, more prone to the risk of developing side effects and interactions between medications which leads to poor medication adherence and poor quality of life, and the role of healthcare professionals to identify the inappropriate medications by using various methods and used to reduce the polypharmacy in the elder population.
Keywords: Polypharmacy, Potentially inappropriate medications, older adults.
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