(AGI) - Rome, Nov. 27 – Medicines can harm the elderly, if taken excessively and above all improperly. This is the alarm of the SIGG geriatricians gathered at the congress in Florence, who highlighted that adverse drug reactions account for up to 15% of all hospitalizations. The elderly, the experts explain, are the category most at risk of suffering damage to their health caused by the improper use of medicines. In fact, it has been calculated that approximately 60-80% of over-65s take at least one drug and even 10% receive five or more. The most commonly used drugs are cardiovascular and antihypertensive drugs, followed by analgesics, sedatives and gastrointestinal drugs such as laxatives and gastroprotectors. For this reason, in Western countries, adverse drug reactions represent an important health emergency since they are the basis of approximately 15% of all hospital admissions and determine 5-10% of hospital costs. "Elderly patients - specified the geriatrics Graziano Onder - are particularly susceptible to the risk of adverse reactions in view of their reduced ability to manage them. It should also be emphasized that the real efficacy of almost all drugs has never been tested in subjects very elderly affected by several pathologies at the same time or who are subject to very complex therapeutic regimens.This type of complex patient is generally excluded from the large clinical trials on the basis of which the efficacy of the drugs is evaluated and represents a "black hole" in clinical pharmacoepidemiology". Recent studies published in the international scientific literature have shown that the use of inappropriate drugs is extremely common both in elderly patients who live at home and in long-term care, in Assisted Health Residences, with a prevalence of use that varies between 12 and 40%. The geriatricians recalled that there are four main types of errors concerning the use of drugs: the first type concerns errors that occur due to lack of knowledge, the second errors that occur because wrong methods are used or incorrectly apply adequate methods, the third includes errors related to wrong actions, or simple oversights while the fourth groups errors that occur due to forgetfulness. "To help avoid these errors in drug prescribing - said the president Mr Roberto Bernabei - it would be desirable to bring together around a table the drug regulatory bodies, the European agency EMEA and our AIFA, the industry and scientific societies, in particular geriatricians and pharmacologists, to study the drugs that the elderly will use, in analogy to what already happens for pediatric drugs".
Source: http://salute.agi.it/primapagina/notizie/200811271132-att-rsa0011-art.html
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