Why Polypharmacy is a hot topic

Polypharmacy has become a hot topic because it is widespread in the population, especially in the elderly. The elderly population might be taking more drugs than what they need. This has lead to dangerous effects such as severe drug interactions, rising healthcare costs, and a decrease in patient compliance. While one of the main concerns for the field of geriatrics is to reduce polypharmacy, prescribing multiple medications for patients who have chronic disorders, is also very common and accepted among healthcare providers for treatment. For instance, cardiologists often use multiple medications to control hypertension. This controversy is what makes polypharmacy a hot topic since it needs to be controlled but it is also needed for treatment.

Physicians say that the reasons they practice polypharmacy are to control the positive symptoms of other drugs or they use more drugs because the previous treatment did not work. Previous studies also make polypharmacy a hot topic because such studies help answer questions about polypharmacy, but they also bring up more questions. For instance, one study shows that there is a positive correlation between high levels of polypharmacy and hospitalization. Although it is not clear whether the rising in hospitalized patients causes the rise in polypharmacy or vice versa, polypharmacy should be a reason to prevent hospitalizations in the elderly population.

Another issue which makes polypharmacy a hot topic is whether patients actually improve with multiple drugs. The answer at this time is that scientist don’t really know yet. Some scientist say that the use of herbal medicines, which usually have a low to no efficacy, contribute to the negative effect of polypharmacy. Polypharmacy is particularly a hot topic in the area of chronic pain. Geriatricians are faced with the question of whether giving elderly patients will improve the patient or make him/her worse, since there is much evidence that pain is untreated in elderly patients.