Inappropriate medications in the elderly

Abstract

The aging of the world population is a new medical challenge for the 21st century. There has been a striking increase in the proportion of elderly people, especially the very old, over the past decades. The elderly are living longer due, in part, to improved standards of living and the availability of social aid and medical care. Although some people reach a very old age completely free of physical ailments, most elderly people have several chronic diseases. Modern pharmacotherapy can slow down and delay the consequences of these ailments up to the eighth decade of life, but thereafter the complications of these diseases will usually become clinically significant. This often results in the administration of several drugs simultaneously. © 2008 American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.