Clinical pharmacology in the geriatric patient

Geriatric clinical pharmacology and clinical trials in the elderly

The aging process is linked to changes in the physiological function of organs and changes in body composition that alter the pharmacokinetics of drugs and pharmacodynamic responses. Comorbidity and polypharmacy in the elderly decreases tolerability of drugs, leading to greater vulnerability to adverse drug reactions than that observed in younger adults. In geriatric pharmacotherapy, the genera...

Aging biology and geriatric clinical pharmacology.

Population aging evokes doomsday economic and sociological prognostication, despite a minority of older people suffering significant dependency and the potential for advances in therapeutics of age-related disease and primary aging. Biological aging processes are linked mechanistically to altered drug handling, altered physiological reserve, and pharmacodynamic responses. Parenteral loading dos...

The critical role of clinical pharmacology in geriatric psychopharmacology.

There is limited geriatrics-oriented clinical pharmacological information available to guide pharmacotherapy in latelife psychiatric disorders. In this paper, we review available data on interindividual differences in drug exposure and central nervous system functioning, amplified by drug–drug interactions in the elderly, that may contribute to variable responses to treatment and significant ad...

Clinical Pharmacology of the Antimalarial Quinine in Children

Quinine is the best studied drug for treating severe malaria in very young children. Quinine may be administered in pregnancy and, at therapeutic doses, malformations have not been reported. Some strains of quinine from Southeast Asia and South America have become resistant. Quinine is the treatment of choice for the drug-resistant severe Plasmodium falciparum. The antimalarial mechanism of qui...

Reframing the geriatric patient.