Medications can be very useful tools for clinicians to help treat, prevent, and even cure illness, but they can also cause harm, especially when used inappropriately. In a recent report, “Medication Overload: America's Other Drug Problem,” the Lown Institute found that polypharmacy among Americans aged 65 years and older has increased substantially over the past few decades, and with it the rate of adverse drug events
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The drive to prescribe will contribute to the premature deaths of 150,000 older Americans in the next decade.
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March 30-31 was a milestone in the Lown Medication Overload project, when 30 working group members came to Boston to discuss strategies for reducing medication overload. Here's what we talked about!
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To eliminate medication overload, serious cultural, educational, and policy changes are needed. This action plan offers recommendations for policymakers, health care institutions, clinicians, and patients across five key categories to reduce harm from multiple medication use.
Suggested Citation: Eliminating medication overload: A national action plan. Working Group on Medication Overload. Brookline, MA: The Lown Institute, 2020.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46241/LI.YLBW4885
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Taking lots of medications is, for many of us, an inevitable part of getting older. While some of these drugs help keep us healthy, there are serious risks to taking too many. For my husband, the drugs he was prescribed to alleviate his symptoms became a cascade of medications that eventually destroyed his health.
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According to a new report, if prescribing patterns do not change in the US, older adults will experience at least 74 million adverse drug events requiring medical care and will be hospitalized nearly 5 million times in the next decade. Eliminating Medication Overload: A National Action Plan, a report issued by the Lown Institute, is based on input from national experts, and highlights the risks of overprescribing and overuse of medications, particularly in older adults. The report is both a wakeup call and a roadmap that offers policy recommendations and guidance for health care institutions, clinicians, and older adults to reduce harm from multiple medication use.
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On the Institute for Healthcare Improvement blog, Dr. Terry Fulmer, President of The John A. Hartford Foundation, explains why tackling medication overload is essential for older adults.
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The Boston Globe highlights the problem of medication overload and provides a sneak peek of the upcoming Lown action plan.
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This issue brief recommends training health professionals to reduce medication overload, by incorporating information on geriatric care and deprescribing training into professional schools and continuing education.
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This issue brief provides recommendations for how to raise awareness among patients, clinicians, and the general public about the potential harms of multiple medication use.
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Over the past decade, the use of multiple medications (clinically known as “polypharmacy”) has skyrocketed among older adults. Aging brings ailments and chronic illnesses, and more illnesses generally lead to more prescriptions. But every additional medication taken by an older person increases the risk of a serious side effect. As medication use has dramatically increased, too many older adults are simply overloaded with medications that are more likely to harm rather than help them.
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You wouldn't give a baby a Xanax to put it to sleep, so why are we giving these medications to older adults? Shannon Brownlee and Judith Garber explain how the culture of prescribing and fragmentation contribute to medication overload.
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Best practices for supporting residents with medication management to help you work with seniors and their prescribers for improved health outcomes
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Tips on how to help loved ones determine medication excess
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As a consequence, older Americans are particularly susceptible to polypharmacy. "Multiple medications can be beneficial for some patients," says Judith Garber, a senior policy analyst at the Lown Institute. Nevertheless, research shows that each additional medication raises a person's risk of suffering an adverse drug event by 7 to 10%.
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'Medication Overload: America’s Other Drug Problem', a report released in 2019 by the Lown Institute, chronicles the epidemic of polypharmacy in the United States.
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In a new report, the Lown Institute calls for a national action plan to address overprescribing.
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Why is the culture the drives overprescribing so tough to change? Read the new op-ed from Theresa Brown, RN, to find out more!
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In a recent feature article in Healthy Aging magazine, patient advocate Johanna Trimble describes what happened when her mother-in-law, Fervid, was transferred from her residential facility to a nearby health care center.
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A quirk in the electronic health record system means that it's much harder for clinicians to discontinue medications than prescribe them.
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