Present Status of Elderly Patients at Geriatric Outpatient Clinics in Terms of Number of Clinics Consulted and Number of Drugs Taken

Abstract

It has been said that elderly patients generally have many diseases (polypathology) for which they consult multiple doctors and are given a wide variety of drugs by their attending doctors (polypharmacy). There is a tendency for elderly patients to buy various kinds of drugs from drug stores without medical prescriptions. However, little is known about the actual status of the numbers and kinds of drugs they take. To answer these questions, we studied 192 elderly patients who were regularly consulting the outpatient clinic of geriatric medicine at Kyoto University Hospital. Seventy nine patients (41%) were consulting other clinics of the same hospital in parallel with ours. Of these patients 81% were given some drugs at other clinics. Forty of 192 patients took a variety of OTC drugs, concerning which they did not inform their attending doctors. Among these, 24 patients took some kinds of traditional Chinese medicine. Thus, a considerable percentage of elderly patients were consulting more than one clinic and in most of these patients were given some drugs. Some of them also take, without permission, drugs other than those prescribed by attending doctors. These results led us to conclude that elderly patients should be under the strict control of a single attending doctor to avoid unexpected adverse effects. © 1993, The Japan Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved.