Question

Define Poly-pharmacy. Research the implications of poly-pharmacy on the elderly. How can this be avoided. What needs to be done to safely administer medication to the older adult and insure compliance. Discuss alterations in the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of medication in this age group. Share this information with your classmates.

Answer 1

Poly-pharmacy consists in the use of multiple medicines, especially in the older population with two or more chronic health conditions (multimorbidity), this because each health condition requires a different set of medicines.

Elderly patients are at greater risk of dangerous effects due to decreased renal and hepatic function, reduced hearing, vision, cognition and mobility. Some of the adverse outcomes of polypharmacy are: mortality, falls and adverse drug reactions.

The adverse effects of polypharmacy in elderly patients can be avoided by properly diagnosis of that people unfit for this kind of treatment.

The keys to safely administer medication to the older adult are minimize the number of medicaments prescribed, keep the dosing schedule as simple as possible and limit the number of medications changes. We must evaluate and balance the potential adverse effects of a drug against its benefits to identify the correct medication for an older patient.

With aging fat stores increase while total body water decreases. These changes increase the concentration of water soluble drugs and decrease the concentration of fat soluble drugs.

Also with aging decrease the hepatic function causing reduced hepatic blood flow and altering drug clearance. In addition renal function is affected with aging causing problems in drug elimination due to decreases in renal blood flow.