Medication Undertreatment in Assisted Living Settings
Open Access
- 11 October 2004
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in Archives of internal medicine (1960)
- Vol. 164 (18) , 2031-2037
- https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.164.18.2031
Abstract
Geriatric practitioners have long been concerned about medication overuse among older persons. High rates of prescription drug use, adverse drug events, and drug interactions have led to this widespread concern. Drug-related problems have been reported to be common among older persons in outpatient,1,2 hospital,3 and long-term care settings.4,5 During the 1990s, much attention focused on "potentially inappropriate" prescribing of drugs whose use was no longer recommended because safer and/or more effective alternatives were available.6,7 Investigators have demonstrated significant rates of "potentially inappropriate" medication use among older persons who lived independently in the community,8 were homebound,9 lived in nursing homes,10 and lived in assisted-living facilities.11 In 2000, "potentially inappropriate medications" were added to nursing home survey criteria.12 All of these efforts have increased the awareness of health care providers, regulators, and consumers to the dangers of medication overuse and misuse in elderly patients.This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: