Keynote 3 – Drug safety in geriatric patients

Abstract:

Elderly patients often receive a greater number of drugs than younger patients. Many suffer from chronic diseases such as heart failure, diabetes, arthritis and many more. On the other hand, every pharmacist is aware that organ function in elderly is often impaired. Pharmacokinetic parameters differ in elderly compared to young patients. Unfortunately, this is not taken into account in many cases. Some drugs have to be abandoned in the elderly. There are many studies showing that especially the elderly suffer from adverse drug reactions or medication errors. In 2002, the USP MEDMARX 2002 data report showed that more than 1/3rd of hospital medication errors that reached the patient involved geriatric patients. Those errors produced more harm and fatalities in the elderly patient group than in other patient groups. The clinical pharmacist as well as others in the therapeutic team of the hospital should know about safety of drugs in the elderly patient. The speaker Prof. Dr. Petra Thürmann is an expert in this field. In her studies she adopted the Beers criteria to the German drug market and gave an insight into the problems of drug use in the geriatric patient.

Teaching Goals:

• give insights to the different approaches to drug therapy in the elderly
• discuss the specific problems of the geriatric organism regarding drug therapy
• show the most problematic drugs in the elderly in front of the scientific background
• discuss the role of clinical and hospital pharmacist in this field of practice

Learning Objectives:

After the presentation the participant should:

• be able to define the problems elderly patients have with drug therapy
• be able to design and put into practice a guidance to drug therapy in the elderly, e.g. local guidelines