Question

A) Polypharmacy

What does polypharmacy mean? Begin by defining this term, and providing one example. What factors might complicate polypharmacy among older adults? Discuss one potential solution or polypharmacy prevention tool as related to the factors your provided. Consider your own experiences: hypothetically, if asked by a health professional about your medications, would you consider occasional acetaminophen (Tylenol), ibuprofen (Motrin), or a daily vitamin in providing an answer? Why or why not? Lastly, reflect on why you chose option A (polypharmacy) as opposed to option B (addiction).

Answer 1

Ans) Polypharmacy refers to the use of a large number of medications, commonly considered to be the use of five or more. Since polypharmacy is a consequence of having several underlying medical conditions, it is much more common in elderly patients.

- Polypharmacy has been and always will be common among the elderly population due to the need to treat the various disease states that develop as a patient ages. Unfortunately with this increase in the use of multiple medications comes with an increased risk for negative health outcomes such as higher healthcare costs, ADEs, drug-interactions, medication non-adherence, decreased functional status and geriatric syndromes. More implementation studies are needed to show that practical application of the methods shown to improve polypharmacy issues can be disseminated to the various medical settings where older adults receive care.

Here are strategies you can use to help patients reduce the risk of polypharmacy.

Information. Discuss with patients the need to:
keep an accurate list of all medications, including generic and brand names, dosages, dosing frequency, and reason for taking the drug.
- keep a complete list of medical providers and their contact information post the name and telephone number of the local pharmacy.
Instruction.

- Teach patients about: Each medication, including its name, appearance, purpose, and effects, potential adverse effects and interactions of each medication importance of contacting the healthcare provider with concerns or questions, potential drug-related problems that warrant emergency care, importance of taking medications exactly as directed, importance of using only one pharmacy to obtain drugs.

Organization. To help patients manage their drugs, caution them to:

- avoid sharing medications
- store medications in a secure, dry location

- away from sunlight refrigerate medications if necessary
- dispose of old medications properly.
- Also, if appropriate, help patients establish memory aids.