Overmedication In Elderly

With access to prescription drugs, people are able to treat a multitude of diseases and illnesses. These drugs help deal with pain, inability to sleep, depression, and much more. Every day we are increasingly living in a world where there is better living through chemicals. However, what most do not seem to see is the rising tide of pain, illness, and ultimately death being caused by the pills people take every day. Most keep drugs in a special place in their minds, where they see them as harmless. Sadly, this is not the case, and in some cases our prescription drugs can be just as harmful as illegal drugs (King 68).

In today's society people are quick to find easy and fast ways to make them feel better or reduce stress leading to long term health problems. Medication is designed to ease someone or somethings pain, but overusing a drug can result in side effects that can force someone to need more drugs to get better. Siri Carpenter believes that the use of multiple and unnecessary medication is escalating and frightening. “The use of multiple, often unnecessary medications — especially among older people — is an entrenched, escalating, frightening, and mostly unexamined problem in modern healthcare care,” (Carpenter 1). People find it easy to take

Prescribed medication is on the rise in the United States. Particularly among the elderly as they are more inclined to be taking medications. According to the textbook, about thirty percent of people who are sixty-five or older take eight or more prescriptions daily. (Snyder, 62) With that comes an increase in medication misuse and abuse. The difference between the two has to do with the intentions or motivations the person has. Medication misuse is an unintentional or willful use of a medication in a way that differs from prescribed dose or intent. (Snyder, 61) The first example found in the textbook includes taking several unused antibiotics for strep throat from last years prescription, thinking the sore throat is strep throat. The second example is a person who takes a double dose of Tylenol, thinking the higher dose will clear the symptoms faster. The last example from the book is failing to take entire course of antibiotics prescribed for them. (Snyder, 61) On the other hand, medication abuse is deliberately taking a drug for non-medical reason. For example, taking a prescription medicine that was prescribed to someone else, taking the medicine in a different form such as snorting it, or taking a certain medicine with the intent to get high. Both medication abuse and misuse in the elderly population is of concern on the grounds that it can bring mental and physical debilitation. Older people misusing or abusing medications puts them at greater danger and may lead to

Ellenbeck et al. (2004) conducted a study to identify nurses’ experiences and perceptions regarding medication and associated adverse outcomes related to polypharmacy. This non-experimental, descriptive study containing quantitative and qualitative data was used to determine the nurses’ observations and experiences. The sample included 101 home health care nurses from 12 agencies, who reported on 1467 patients. The collection of data was from the nurses’ responses to the questionnaire and surveys regarding medication management. The results of the study revealed 78% of the patients were at risk for medication error and 5% of the patients reported adverse effects of medications due to polypharmacy. In addition to lack of medication education, nurses reported that 5% of the patients were taking medications in which they did not have an order for, 9% of the medications were prescribed by more than one provide, and 5% of the patients medication orders were not updated in their records. The study also revealed that the nurses’ observations included older

The elderly population is the generation most treated by healthcare professionals, so it stands to reason that drug abuse within the elderly presents a much higher risk than drug abuse among younger generations. Ignoring the problem leads to diminished quality of life and a less attentive healthcare system. Sadly, prescription drug abuse is a silent epidemic among the elderly population and it is a growing problem. With proper attention and diagnosis, there can be a reduction in injuries, such as hip fractures from falling, excessive hospitalizations, and even untimely death.

Are prescription drugs overprescribed? Are patients being prescribed the correct medications that they actually need? Are generic drugs doing the same for the human body that marked up brand name medications are? These are some of the public’s biggest questions that can be easily answered by research. Everyone is affected by medication and healthcare in general today. Many real life scenarios are offered throughout this writing to support the argument. The following thesis statement is a worldwide problem. Unfortunately, the United States has the largest problem with inflation of drug cost and over-prescription of medications. Many people are to blame: drug manufacturers, insurers, prescribers, educators, and many others. A change is needed.

The medical world has seen many changes and advances over the last century, but possibly none that is as financially lucrative then the prescription medication industry. New drugs turn up everyday and claim to treat more and more conditions. On the corner of every block is a pharmacy and their shelves are stocked with prescription medications and it seems they are here to stay. The question is, to medicate or not to medicate?

Pharmacist say they've had older people taking 3-5 prescriptions, that are confusing them because some are nullifying each other. Meanwhile doctors are over prescribing medications and patients are becoming junkies. Most people taking that many prescriptions hardly even know what drug it is.

Imagine going into your doctor’s office for an easily treatable illness, and coming out with a slip for an orange bottle full of pills. Now imagine taking them every single day for the next several years because your body has become reliant on these pills to perform properly. Prescription medications have the capacity to do various things to the body. Many of these drugs have been scientifically proven to have successful results by helping patients cure certain diseases or conditions. However, many of them have been known to have a bad effect or reverse reaction to the body that an individual is not aware of. A plethora of drugs are helping so many people but at the same time putting them into danger if they are over or misprescribed. Is the

Are prescription drugs overprescribed? Are patients being prescribed the correct medications that they actually need? Are generic drugs doing the same for the human body that marked up brand name medications are? These are some of the public’s biggest questions that can be easily answered by research. Everyone is affected by medication and healthcare in general today. Many real life scenarios are offered throughout this writing to support the argument. The following thesis statement is a worldwide problem. Unfortunately, the United States has the largest problem with inflation of drug cost and over-prescription of medications. Many people are to blame: drug manufacturers, insurers, prescribers, educators, and many others. A change is needed.

The concept of “deprescribing medications” as mentioned in your paper is an interesting topic. This is a relativity new concept that the use of multiple medications that can increase the risk of adverse drug reactions to the patient. When polypharmacy is apparent, the risk of drug interaction falls hospitalization and death can occur. The APN has a role in the medical profession to start a trend of watching over and deprescribe medication for the polypharmacy patients. While compiling the prescribed medication and the medication the patient consumes the chance that they can overlap each other and cause harm is increased. With the elderly population deprescribing by tapering, stopping, and or discontinuing medication

Research shows that half of life-threatening or fatal adverse-drug events (ADEs) are preventable and a lot of these ADEs result from prescribing errors or co-prescription of drugs known to have drug-to-drug interactions.

DuPont (2005) reports, "During the past decade, there has been a significant increase in the use of prescription medicines for an increasing number of indications. Participating fully in this trend has been the use of medicines to treat psychiatric disorders and the widespread use of narcotic analgesics to treat outpatients for the first time in a century." Errors in prescribing and over medicating has struck a wide spread controversy. Nonmedical use or use by someone who had not seen a physician to get a proper prescription is of a higher concern (DuPont, 2005).

Lenander et.al, (2015) define polypharmacy as the consequences of multiple concurrent medications taken to primarily manage existing health problems such as hypertension and diabetes. Polypharmacy is a typical problem among older adults. Currently, adults within the age bracket of 65 years and above take five or more medications on a weekly basis, 57% of which are women and 44% are men. Besides, the prevalence of polypharmacy is about 12% of both women and men that take ten medications and above per week (Lenander et.al, 2015). Understanding this issue on multiple levels is essential in helping to decrease the prevalence of polypharmacy and medication errors. This problem is a leading cause of many negative outcomes associated with healthcare. Not only physical and psychological problems for the patient but also social and economical problems for the healthcare industry as a whole.

In the United States an estimated 1.3 million people are injured every year for “medication errors”. One of the main errors would be involving where the patient would take an improper dose of the medicine. This has even cause 41% of fatal medication errors. Patients would either be taking more than needed or not enough. Another medication error would be prescribing the wrong type of medication for the patient and it tied in with using the wrong route of administration. This error accounted for 16% of deaths in the United States. The medication error for prescribing the wrong type of medication could happen when there are two medications with a similar name. A physician could also prescribe more than one drug but not realize that they would