Polypharmacy Research Paper

Due to the large number of consumers being prescribed multiple medications, and the complexity of managing those medications, it is of a major safety concern that systems are in place for clinicians to reconcile patients medications to resolve any discrepancies in what the patient is using, or should be using, and newly added ones.

Human health and theIR quality of life have been improving in the past 100 due to changes in medicine and in public health (Mattes et al., 2013). Patients are placed on multiple medications at the same time and it important to understand their safety, efficacy, drug interaction, and toxicity (Mattes et al., 2013). As Mr. Cynthia Nurse practitioner, my job is to understand what affect her prescribing medication is having on her body. I have place Mrs. Cynthia on Lisinopril for her hypertension and metformin for her type II diabetes.

Inappropriate prescribing commonly occurs in adults aged 65 or older, who have a higher prevalence of chronic disease, disability, and dependency (Page II, Linnebur, Bryant, & Ruscin, 2010). Exposure to inappropriate medications is associated with increased morbidity, mortality, and health care utilization (Page II, Linnebur, Bryant, & Ruscin, 2010). Below is a list of measures that concentrate on the prescribing of correct medications in the hospital

Nearly half of seniors do not take their medications when or how they were prescribed. There are mistakes on dosages, methods of delivery, time of delivery, what they should be taken with, and even if they should still be taken. Compounding the issue, most seniors over the age of 65 are taking between 8 and 13 different medications. Put these numbers together and it is no wonder that problems with medication management are one of the leading reasons seniors end up in the emergency room, and is the number one reason seniors end up back in the hospital after being recently discharged. According to a study published in "Pharmacotherapy", nearly 70 percent of hospitalized seniors suffered from at least one

With the growing reliance on medication therapy as the primary intervention for most illnesses, patients receiving medication interventions are exposed to potential harm as well as benefits. Medicines have proven to be very beneficial for treating illness and preventing disease. This success has resulted in a dramatic increase in medication use in recent times. Unfortunately, this increase in use and expansion of the pharmaceutical industry has also brought with it an increase in hazards, error and adverse events associated with medication use.

As the population continues to live longer the older adult has had an increase in chronic conditions develop, resulting in an increase in multimorbidity. This causes the older adult to be more vulnerable to disability, poor quality of life, risk of death and adverse drug reactions (Salive, 2013). In general, the older adult is vulnerable to having an adverse reaction to medications. The older adult not only has a higher risk of an adverse reaction to any particular medication given, there is an increase in risk of reactions associated with the multiple medications older adults are frequently prescribed due to multi-chronic conditions (Hubbard, O’Mahony, & Woodhouse, 2013). Adverse drug reaction and multimorbidity can benefit from additional research to better understand the older adult reaction to medications and dosages, as well as management of multimorbidity. Until then physicians, nurses, the older adult, and the family need to collaborate to find the treatment plan that works best with the least amount of side effects from medications. Often times starting low with medication dosing and increasing to the dose to achieve therapeutic levels is done with the older adult to help decrease an adverse reaction to medication. Management of multimorbid conditions in which maximizing the quality of life the older adult has is the goal. This can be done by frequent assessment of the treatment plan and making

Polypharmacy among the elderly is a growing concern in U.S. healthcare system. Patients who have comorbities and take multiple medications are at a higher risk for potential adverse drug reactions. There is a great need for nursing interventions in conducting a patient medication review also known as “brown bag”. As nurses obtain history data from patients at a provider visit, the nurse should ask “what medications are you taking?” and the answer needs to include over-the-counter medications as well. If the response does not include any medications other than prescribed meds, it is incumbent upon the nursing professionals to question the patient further to ensure that no over-the-counter medications or supplements are

Patients walk into our clinics daily with a variety of complaints. Many things we can observe and assess drive our decisions for plans of care. However, there are some things about our patients we can’t see. Some things nobody would know under normal circumstances. How most medications are metabolized is predictable across the population, but some medications throw us a curve ball. Polypharmacy is a necessity in primary care. As primary care providers (PCPs) we see patients for both chronic and acute pathologies. Understanding metabolic pathways is expected of us as providers, but that doesn’t make us invulnerable to poor outcomes despite best efforts. In the following

Optimizing drug therapy is an essential part of caring for an older person. The process of prescribing a medication is complex and includes: deciding that a drug is indicated, choosing the best drug, determining a dose and schedule appropriate for the patient's physiologic status, monitoring for effectiveness and toxicity, educating the patient about expected side effects, and indications for seeking consultation. Multiple factors contribute to the appropriateness and overall quality of drug prescribing. These include avoidance of inappropriate medications, appropriate use of indicated medications, monitoring for side effects and drug levels, avoidance of drug-drug interactions, and involvement of the patient and integration of patient values.

According to the Health Care Finance Administration (HCFA), on July 1, 1999, established a quality indicator that residents taking nine or more medications will be used to identify long-term facilities where medications potentially are overused and residents may be at increased risk for adverse drug reactions (ADR). However, this approach can be controversial because the medication is essential for older people health safety. There are many factors on the overuse of medication which can include age, health and the number health care visits. Especially on home care and long-term facilities, most of the elderly in this facilities are forced to take these medications due to facility policies (Hanlon, 2001). Another

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

With many of the elderly population taking more and more medications and seeing multiple prescribing providers, the risk for an adverse drug reaction increases. Adverse drug reactions are prevalent among the aging population and contribute substantially to both mortality and morbidity. Adverse drug reactions are a typical cause of declining functional or cognitive abilities, as well as the worsening of conditions leading to more admissions to acute care and eventually long term care facilities. Psychological

In the United States, approximately 20% of 30-day hospital readmissions are due to inconsistent transition of care (TOC).5, 13 This means the expenditure of billions of unnecessary dollars that could have been prevented if the patients had received proper, coordinated, and consistent care from discharge back to the community. In fact, Medicare reports show more than 17 billion dollars a year are spent on preventable readmissions, leading cause being improper medication usage after discharge.1 Up to 2% of these medication discrepancies were life-threatening and even led to death.7 Medication discrepancies often occur when patients have a lack of understanding of discharge medication plans, inadequate literacy to understand the dismissal notes, become nonadherent to medication regimen, and/or experience adverse drug events.8, 11 Expanding community pharmacists’ involvement in post-discharge TOC and improving communication will benefit patients, healthcare providers, and the healthcare system through decreased hospital readmission, medication related adverse events, and financial burden.

This can cause an elder person to overdose and experience so or many of the risks that was mentioned above depression poor health etc. polypharmacy can also cause an elders death because many of those risks that I mentioned above of not treated early it can develop and eventually kill the person especially heartaches and seizures. In conclusion, polypharmacy has very dangerous effects on an elder adult body and can cause many problems such as depression anemia poor health and can eventually cause deaths. Not only does it pose a great risk to elder adults it also poses a great risk to the health industry because they are prescribing these medicines and if to many deaths occur from these elder taking the medicines, it will cause other people to not fully trust them and probably stop taking their medicines. To prevent this doctor can check the patient and see how much they are taking and the strength of each medicine to know how if they need to prescribe the patient more medicine or to know to give the patient a medicine that is not as strong so it do not affect the patient are cause any greater

For 15 years, I worked in the nursing home industry. I was forever in awe at how many of my patients filled a whole drawer on the medication cart with their plethora of medications; some of them even spilled over into a second drawer. Very rarely did we ever get a new admit that it didn’t take an hour to transcribe their medication list over to the new MAR. Many times they would have medications and no diagnosis to justify the medications. Often, they couldn’t even tell you what medications they took or why they were taking them.