Age
Older people are more likely than any other age group to
use any type of medication [29]. However, it has been
observed that medication use decreases in those over 75
years [4]. Some suggest that this occurs because: doctors
exercise more caution when prescribing to the oldest old
[48,49], survivors into advanced age are healthier and
thus use fewer medications [4,50], the elderly face fewer
stressful events [50]. The observation of a decline in psychotropic
drug use with very advancing age is not universal
[51]: Blazer et al. [6] and Mamdani et al.[49] found
that it reaches its peak prevalence among those older than
85 years. As Table 2 [see additional file 2] shows, 22 studies
carried out 23 tests of the association between age and
drug use, but only 8 (35%) of the results showed an agespecific
trend (5 found an increase and 3 a decrease). This
low percentage prevents firm conclusions about any age
trend in regard to psychotropic drug use among older
people.