Overmedicating the Elderly – the new Epidemic Part 1
An 83-year
-old grandmother is rushed to the hospital because of an asthma attack. Once there, she is prescribed steroids for the asthma, which causes her blood pressure to skyrocket. To lower her blood pressure, the hospital prescribes a medicine that makes her dizzy. Then, her ankles began to swell, so she is given a water pill, which causes her level of potassium to drop. So the doctors add potassium supplements. She is also given a drug to treat osteoporosis, which causes her stomach to bleed. At the end of her stay, the grandmother comments, “I came out sicker than when I went in.”
In 2011, doctors wrote 4.02 billion prescriptions for drugs in America. That’s an average of roughly 13 prescriptions for each man, woman, and child, or one new prescription every month for every American.
The problem is even more pronounced among the elderly. Although seniors currently comprise 12.4 percent of the U.S. population, they consume nearly a third of all prescriptions and half of all over-the-counter medications. Ninety percent of all seniors over 65 take some form of medication daily, with 50 percent of this group taking more than five drugs every day. A recent study found approximately one in five prescriptions written for elderly patients was inappropriate.
