TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Chapter 14. Drug Therapy A1 - Kane, Robert L. A1 - Ouslander, Joseph G. A1 - Abrass, Itamar B. A1 - Resnick, Barbara PY - 2013 T2 - Essentials of Clinical Geriatrics, 7e AB - Geriatric patients are sometimes viewed as “walking chemistry sets” because they are frequently prescribed multiple drugs in complex dosage schedules. This is often the result of older people seeing multiple prescribing clinicians who do not communicate with each other and a lack of a comprehensive medication list either electronically or in hard copy. With older patients, polypharmacy is common because of the presence of multiple chronic medical conditions, the proven efficacy of an increasing number of drugs for these conditions, and practice guidelines that recommend their use. The nature of drug therapy in managing chronic disease has changed greatly. Many conditions can be better controlled, but at a cost. In many instances, however, complex drug regimens are unnecessary; they are costly and predispose to nonadherence and adverse drug reactions. Many older patients are prescribed multiple drugs, take over-the-counter drugs, and are then prescribed additional drugs to treat the side effects of medications they are already taking. This scenario can result in an upward spiral in the number of drugs being taken and commonly leads to polypharmacy. SN - PB - The McGraw-Hill Companies CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/28 UR - accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=57736239 ER -