Medication-Related Harm in Older Adults Is Common, Costly, and Preventable

A study of 1,280 older adults in the U.K. published in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology found medication-related harm affected one in three adults following release from the hospital, of which half were potentially preventable, reports EurekaAlert . Failure to properly administer medications was implicated in 25 percent of cases of medication harm. The cost to the National Health Service of post-release medication harm in older adults was estimated at 396 million pounds, more than 90 percent of which was attributable to hospital readmissions. "As the use of medicines in the aging population is rapidly increasing, it's vital that we improve awareness among clinicians of the harm that medicines commonly cause," says Brighton and Sussex Medical School Professor Chakravarthi Rajkumar. "The risk-to-benefit analysis is particularly complex in the older population. Any decision to prescribe medicines should be made in close collaboration with seniors and carers, with a tentative stop date and with monitoring of correct usage and adverse reactions."