The Acute Care SettingIn light of t

The Acute Care Setting

In light of the physiologic changes associated with aging, as well as the problems posed by taking multiple medications, it is clear that active intervention is required to prevent adverse drug reactions in geriatric patients.

A large cohort study of Medicare enrollees with more than 30,000 patient-years of observation found that 28% of adverse drug reactions were potentially avoidable. Most errors occurred during prescribing and monitoring. A number of strategies have been proposed for reducing these unwanted medication consequences in the hospital setting, including:

Avoid inappropriate drug prescribing;
Avoid overprescribing;
Implement age-appropriate dosing; and
Encourage a multidisciplinary ap-proach.