Medical Approach to Elderly Care

Statistics show that there are 42.3 million people aged 60 and over in the US. Of these older adults, 9.6 million experience adverse reactions to prescribed and over the counter drugs every year. These reactions include drug induced car accidents and falls, memory loss, parkinsonism, ulcers, and death from overdoses of heart medicines and anesthetics. In 1991, people in this age group filled 650 million prescriptions— an average of slightly more than 15 prescriptions per person!

Some of the overused medications are tranquilizers (sleeping pills and mind-altering drugs), cardiovascular drugs, and gastrointestinal drugs. The medications used to treat heart disease, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular disease were found to be the most abused.

      Many older adults are happy to take medication to relieve their aches and pains. The medical community and the drug industry has also led them to believe that these drugs will extend their lives.

      Doctors often share the belief that an office visit should end by writing a prescription for an elderly patient. 

      They may not know a great deal about geriatric medicine and they may fail to realize that danger drugs may have on these adults. Too often, these older citizens go to more than one physician and get medication for different problems from each doctor. The combination of the various chemicals can be deadly.

Furthermore, when doctors who treated Medicare patients were tested about their knowledge of prescribing medicine for these patients, a study revealed that seventy percent (70%) of them did not pass. Ironically, the majority of the M.D.s who were asked to be in the study refused to take the test at all. They said they had no interest in the subject of geriatrics and medication.

      The drug companies are often guilty of inadequate testing. Nevertheless, they market the drugs to M.D.s, sometimes using skewed test results, misleading claims and slick advertising. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted a study in which it found that of 425 drugs commonly taken by older patients, only 212 had proper geriatric dosage and contraindication information supplied with them.

      The risk of a bad reaction to drugs is 33 percent higher than those between 50 and 59 than it is in people in their forties or younger. The FDA has reported that most of the deaths from prescribed drugs occured in people who were 60 and over.

"If you rush to take it [a new drug], do so with full knowledge that you are being a guinea pig. The longer the drug is on the market, the more will be known about the side effects."
Robert S. Mendelsohn, M.D.