A Review of Polypharmacy in the Elderly and Its Management Strategies

With the increase in the elderly population and the increase in life expectancy, the possibility of chronic diseases and the use of several drugs at the same time has increased, which can cause harmful drug interactions and reactions. This research is a review study that was conducted by searching the keywords poly-pharmacy, elderly, and prevalence in PubMed, Science Direct, Scopus, Google Scholar, Ovid, Magiran, and Sid databases in the period of 2005-2023. According to the findings, the highest prevalence of polypharmacy was in the age groups of 70-74 and 80-84, and polypharmacy was related to the demographic characteristics and health status of the individual and the characteristics of the health center. Also, studies have shown that there is a relationship between the source of obtaining information about drugs and the polypharmacy consumption pattern. To prevent drug side effects, the necessity of continuous monitoring of elderly drugs has been emphasized in various articles. The results of the studies showed that the use of strategies such as; interaction between doctor and pharmacist, educating the elderly about the dangers of self-inflicted use of medicines, informing the elderly about the limitations of using herbal medicines, using electronic tools to monitor the process of taking medicines and using protocols and guidelines for prescribing medicines can reduce to a great extent the multiplicity of drug regimens in the drug regimen of the elderly and make the use of drugs in this age group much easier.

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