Drug Treatment Patterns For Nursing Home Residents Are Critical In Protecting Health And Life
Nursing home residents run greatly
increased risks of death or hospitalization if they are given
intermittent or short-term drug therapy for common ailments such as
depression, arthritis or sinus problems, a new study shows.
Residents given intermittent drug
treatment over a three month period were almost 90 percent more likely
to die at the end of that period. Residents
who took these potentially inappropriate medications over a two-month
period had an 80 percent greater chance of being hospitalized in the
third month.
The study author Denys Lau, a professor at
"We’re not saying that taking these medications causes the hospitalizations and deaths. But
our work shows that there’s a relationship between the two and that
doctors should pay attention to the drugs they prescribe. At least 50 percent of nursing home residents take these medications, so the scope is pretty dramatic and troubling."
One factor in these results is that
there have been very few clinical trials of drugs commonly prescribed to
the elderly despite the fact that it is known that older people absorb,
metabolize and eliminate drugs at different rates than younger people.
"The risk seemed to rise when the patient regimens fluctuate back and forth between drugs,"
Lau added. When a long-term regimen was followed, no increase in death or hospitalization was seen.
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