Appropriate prescribing in elderly people: how well can it be measured and optimised?

Prescription of medicines is a fundamental component of the care of elderly people, and optimisation of drug prescribing for this group of patients has become an important public-health issue worldwide. Spinewine A, Schmader KE, Barber N, Hughes C, Lapane KL, Swine C, Hanlon JT.
Spinewine A, Schmader KE, Barber N, Hughes C, Lapane KL, Swine C, Hanlon JT. Appropriate prescribing in elderly people: how well can it be measured and optimised?. Lancet. 2007; 370(9582): 173-184. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673607610915
Article
31/10/2013
Several characteristics of ageing and geriatric medicine affect medication prescribing for elderly people and render the selection of appropriate pharmacotherapy a challenging and complex process. In the first paper in this series we aim to define and categorise appropriate prescribing in elderly people, critically review the instruments that are available to measure it and discuss their predictive validity, critically review recent randomised controlled intervention studies that assessed the effect of optimisation strategies on the appropriateness of prescribing in elderly people, and suggest directions for future research and practice.
Spinewine A, Schmader KE, Barber N, Hughes C, Lapane KL, Swine C, Hanlon JT.
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