Prescribing potentially inappropriate psychotropic medications to the ambulatory elderly.

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Abstract
PSYCHOTROPIC AGENTS are frequently prescribed to the elderly for a wide variety of mental health conditions.1-3 These agents significantly improve patients' conditions but also may lead to deleterious outcomes, especially if not used properly.2,3 Elderly patients are more susceptible to these outcomes owing to pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic changes.2,4 General concerns regarding medication use by elderly patients led to the 1991 publication by Beers et al5 of potentially inappropriate medication criteria for patients older than 65 years who resided in long-term care facilities. Researchers applying these criteria have found that psychotropic agents constitute a large portion of the potentially inappropriate prescriptions for the elderly in various settings (23%, 44%, and 51% in long-term care, office-based settings, and outpatient departments, respectively).6-8 The applicability of these criteria to settings outside of long-term care has been questioned.