BACKGROUND Polypharmacy is an important issue in primary care, yet few data are available concerning its prevalence, complications, and management in clinical medicine. The following case illustrates the clinical perils of polypharmacy and serves as a point for critical discussion. METHODS MEDLINE was searched, using the key word "polypharmacy," from 1994 to the present. A case report of poly...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the remaining life expectancy with and without polypharmacy for Swedish women and men aged 65 years and older. DESIGN Age-specific prevalence of polypharmacy from the nationwide Swedish Prescribed Drug Register (SPDR) combined with life tables from Statistics Sweden was used to calculate the survival function and remaining life expectancy with and without polypharmac...

PURPOSE To explore the frequency of polypharmacy, functional and cognitive capacity among the elderly in Southern Italy. METHODS Population-based retrospective cross-sectional study. Information were retrieved from electronic-geriatric-forms matched by record-linkage to outpatient pharmacy-records. The following domains were collected from geriatric forms: BMI, cognitive capacity (SPMSQ), fun...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Outpatient pediatric polypharmacy is poorly characterized. Identification of at-risk populations has clinical implications for pharmacy case management programs. We described the degree of exposure to polypharmacy using parameters of depth (concurrent medication count) and duration, reported commonly dispensed medications and exposure to three example potential drug-dr...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy, the simultaneous taking of many medications, has been well documented and is a topic of much concern for those looking to improve the quality of care for the elderly. Elderly patients often develop complicated and multifactorial health states that require extensive pharmacotherapy, leaving this population at risk for exposure to drug-drug interactions and other adverse ...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the association between polypharmacy and sociodemographic factors as well as health status, determinants of health and healthcare use, illness and use of prescribed medicines amongst adults in Spain. METHODS Data from the 2009 European Health Interview Survey in Spain which included 22 188 subjects were used. Polypharmacy was defined as the use of five or more prescri...

INTRODUCTION Many acutely ill elderly people are frail and suffer from polypharmacy. They often present with nonspecific symptoms at hospital admission and are therefore often under-triaged and insufficiently treated resulting in adverse health outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of polypharmacy and frailty and to identify if frailty and polypharmacy may predict adverse hea...

BACKGROUND Polypharmacy, the concurrent use of multiple medications, consistently evokes a negative connotation, notably because it is associated with a plethora of adverse events. Nonetheless, the number of individuals exposed to polypharmacy is increasing steeply, especially for older people with multiple diseases. There is a need to carefully study the phenomenon at the population scale to f...

Dementia is a major concern among growing chronic diseases in the aging society and its association with polypharmacy has not been adequately assessed. The objective of this study was to determine the association between polypharmacy and dementia through multiple statistical approaches. We conducted a nested case-control study for newly diagnosed dementia cases using the South Korean National H...