If you have any elderly relatives, take a look in their medicine cabinet some time – there’s a good chance they have been prescribed a drug they shouldn’t be taking, and which may be causing all sorts of health problems.
Many drugs are considered off-limits to elderly patients, and independent bodies have even prepared lists of them, often called PIMs, or potentially inappropriate medications.
Doctors seem to be blissfully unaware of these lists, and hand out prescriptions all day long to the elderly. Worse, they hand out multiple prescriptions so that their older patients are taking a cocktail of PIM drugs.
German researchers reckon that 25 per cent of elderly patients are taking at least one PIM drug, and 8 per cent are taking a cocktail of four or more PIM drugs every day.
The most common PIM drugs being prescribed include amitriptyline, an antidepressant, acetyldigoxin, a heart drug, and the anti-anxiety drugs tetrazepam and oxazepam.
(Source: Deutches Arzteblatt International, 2012; 109: 69075).
What do you think? Start a conversation over on the... WDDTY Community
