Drug Therapy for the Elderly

Description

• Concise text
• Unique classification system to reduce the number of drugs taken by elderly patients
• Illustrated with helpful diagrams and tables

Safe drug therapy in older patients!

Throughout the world today, people aged 65 years and over make up the fastest growing age group. As many elderly patients often suffer from multiple (chronic) diseases, undesired or unwanted drug interactions occur more frequently and are mainly due to

• shifts in biological reference values (e.g., decreases in hepatic blood supply and renal function, increased body fat mass and decreased muscle mass)
• lack of compliance
• medication interactions become difficult to predict for patients on multiple medications

Special aspects that must be considered:

Which adverse side effects and interactions must be taken into account, especially with regard to the potential misinterpretation of drug side effects as a new disease?

Which drug therapies are particularly unsuitable for or require special attention in older patients?

This book offers suggestions and comprehensive advice on the following issues relevant to daily practice:

• Medical safety: Which medicines have priority, which can be omitted?
• Economic security: Improved drug therapy for patients results in fewer prescriptions and lower financial costs.

"The difficulty lies not so much in deciding which therapy to choose as in deciding what can be omitted."
Professor Dr. Georg Ertl, Chairperson of the DGIM (German Society for Internal Medicine) 2007/2008 in his the opening address at the 114th Annual DGIM Meeting

Content Level » Professional/practitioner
Keywords » Drug Therapy - Elderly - Geriatrics - Multimorbidity - Polypharmacy - Serious adverse effects
Related subjects » Family & Geriatric Medicine - Internal Medicine - Pharmaceutical Science

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Foreword
• Part 1: General aspects
• Part 2: Special considerations with regard to organ systems based on geriatric clinical importance
• Part 3: Pharmacotherapy and geriatric syndromes
• Part 4: Further problem areas in gerontopharmacotherapy and pragmatic recommendations