Rational polypharmacy

Rational polypharmacy

The development of assays for plasma antiepileptic drug concentrations has led to the discovery of many pharmacokinetic interactions, some causing drug intoxication and others resulting in ineffective drug concentrations. In the 1970s, a number of epileptologists began to argue that single drug therapy was desirable in the treatment of epilepsy and this has become the accepted policy when initi...

Rational Polypharmacy in the Acute Therapy of Major Depression

Polypharmacy vs. Deprescribing

Usually, the elderly and patients with chronic diseases visit several doctors and are supposed to take multiple medications. The multiplicity of medications is called polypharmacy and it may cause side effects, drug interactions and other helth issues for the patient, and it might go as far as the patient might need to go to the hospital and be admitted in ICU, or even further and be the cause ...

Unnecessary polypharmacy for epilepsy.

A retrospective survey of 50 adult epileptic outpatients who were taking two anticonvulsants drugs showed that seizure control had improved in the six months after the introduction of the second drug in only 36%. When blood concentrations of the two anticonvulsants were subsequently measured improvement in seizure control was found to be significantly related to the presence of optimum blood co...

Polypharmacy in elderly patients.

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy (ie, the use of multiple medications and/or the administration of more medications than are clinically indicated, representing unnecessary drug use) is common among the elderly. OBJECTIVE The goal of this research was to provide a description of observational studies examining the epidemiology of polypharmacy and to review randomized controlled studies that have been p...