ArticleClinical interventions in aging2017
Drug prescription appropriateness in the elderly: an Italian study.
Article in Clinical interventions in aging, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 7 papers.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Prevalence of Potentially Inappropriate Medications in Drug Dispensing Data of Older Adults Living in Northwest Italy.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Screening indicators to evaluate the clinical significance of drug-drug interactions in polypharmacy among older adults with psychiatric disorders: a delphi study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Changes in Antidementia Medications upon Admission to the Nursing Home: Who Decides and Why? Results From a National Survey of Nursing Home Administrators.Journal of the American Medical Directors Association · 2024Article
- Drug prescriptions in elderly hospitalized patients with cognitive impairment in the Italian Dementia Friendly Hospital project.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Review
- A novel pain assessment tool incorporating automated facial analysis: interrater reliability in advanced dementia.Clinical interventions in aging · 2018Observational
- Early rehospitalizations of frail elderly patients - the role of medications: a clinical, prospective, observational trial.Drug, healthcare and patient safety · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCorrect drug prescription in the elderly is a difficult task that requires careful survey of the current pharmacological therapies. In this article, we reviewed the drug prescriptions provided to 860 persons aged 65 years or over, residing in a small city of Lombardy, Italy.
methodsSubjects were recruited from a local nursing home, the Pavia and Vigevano Neuropsychological Center for Alzheimer's Disease, general practitioners' offices, and the local University of the Third Age. For each patient, the amount of potentially inappropriate prescriptions (PIPs), sedative and anticholinergic load (SL and AL, respectively), and drug-drug interactions were evaluated.
resultsWidespread polypharmacy, giving rise to 10.06% of PIPs in the whole collection of prescriptions, was observed. In particular, PIPs mainly concern drugs acting at the central nervous system level, mostly benzodiazepines and antipsychotics. Moreover, approximately one-fourth of the subjects had an elevated SL and approximately one-tenth a high AL. Drug-drug interactions were frequent (266 requiring medical attention), up to five for each single patient. Of concern was the underuse of antidementia drugs: only 20 patients received a cholinesterase inhibitor or memantine, although 183 patients were potentially suitable for this treatment.
conclusionThese results demonstrate the need to develop novel strategies aimed at improving the quality of drug prescription.
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