When should iatrogenic polypharmacy be considered a disease?

Abstract

This case of an elderly patient taking 17 medications, who presents with new neurological symptoms, raises multiple philosophy of medicine questions, including, What is a disease? And what would it mean to treat iatrogenic polypharmacy? Polypharmacy can obscure whether a patient like the one in this case has a neurological disease. I argue that, insofar as polypharmacy is likely to have caused, or at least contributed to, this patient’s symptoms, her physician should treat it as a disease.