Avoiding multiple medication dangers
By Wendy J. Meyeroff
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE
Consider the case of a lady we’ll call “Sarah.” Sarah is 70 years old and has mild arthritis, high blood pressure, heart disease, low bone density, and diabetes. For these conditions, she takes five different prescription medications.
Sarah’s scenario is not unusual. One report notes that 20% of Medicare beneficiaries have five or more chronic conditions and 50% are taking five or more medications.
The pharmaceutical cocktail
This mish-mash of medications in someone’s system has come to be known by physicians as a “pharmaceutical cocktail.”
“Too often, older adults find themselves arbitrarily handed different medicines, by different doctors, treating different conditions,” says Matt Narrett, M.D., chief medical officer for Erickson Communities. “Someone’s rheumatologist prescribes an anti-inflammatory for arthritis, the cardiologist prescribes a statin drug to fight cholesterol problems, and the list continues, with none of these doctors knowing what the other is putting into the person’s system.”
Narrett continues, “Unfortunately this disease- driven approach to treatment—the idea of prescribing what’s good for fighting each particular disease—isn’t always good for the overall treatment of the patient.” He points to the case of a woman whose family thought she was suffering from dementia. It turned out the multiple medications her different doctors had prescribed were making her foggy-headed and seemingly slow-witted, dulling her reflexes and causing other problems. “The family just figured, ‘That’s how Mom has to be,’” says Narrett.