Medication errors in elderly people: contributing factors and future perspectives
- 25 June 2009
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
- Vol. 67 (6), 641-645
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2125.2009.03419.x
Abstract
1. Older people have substantial interindividual variability in health, disability, age-related changes, polymorbidity, and associated polypharmacy, making generalization of prescribing recommendations difficult. 2. Medication use in older adults is often inappropriate and erroneous, partly because of the complexities of prescribing and partly because of many patient, provider, and health system factors that substantially influence the therapeutic value of medications in aged people. 3. A high prevalence of medication errors in older adults results on the one hand from accumulation of factors that contribute to medication errors in all age groups, such as polypharmacy, polymorbidity, enrollment in several disease-management programmes, and fragmentation of care. On the other hand, specific geriatric aspects play a role in these medication errors; these include age-related pharmacological changes, lack of specific evidence on the efficacy and safety of medications, underuse of comprehensive geriatric assessment, less availability of drug formulations offering geriatric doses, and inadequate harmonization of geriatric recommendations across Europe. 4. The dearth of geriatric clinical pharmacology and clinical pharmacy services compounds the difficulties. 5. There are gaps in research and clinical practice that lead to frequent medication errors in older adults, which must be solved by future studies and by regulatory measures in order to support errorless and appropriate use medications in these people.This publication has 25 references indexed in Scilit:
- Reliability of the interRAI suite of assessment instruments: a 12-country study of an integrated health information systemBMC Health Services Research, 2008
- STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons' potentially inappropriate Prescriptions): application to acutely ill elderly patients and comparison with Beers' criteriaAge and Ageing, 2008
- Multidimensional Geriatric Assessment: Back to the Future Second and Third Generation Assessment Instruments: The Birth of Standardization in Geriatric CareThe Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, 2008
- Pharmaceutical policies: effects of cap and co-payment on rational drug usePublished by Wiley ,2008
- RETHINKING THE RESIDENT ASSESSMENT PROTOCOLSJournal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2007
- Potentially inappropriate medications in the elderly: a French consensus panel listEuropean Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 2007
- A Composite Screening Tool for Medication Reviews of OutpatientsDrugs & Aging, 2007
- Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use Among Elderly Home Care Patients in EuropeJAMA, 2005
- Minimum Data Set for Home CareMedical Care, 2000
- Assessing Medication Appropriateness in the ElderlyDrugs & Aging, 2000