from WashingtonPost.com | August 15, 2016
Anna Gorman
An increasing number of elderly patients nationwide are on multiple medications to treat chronic diseases, raising their chances of dangerous drug interactions and serious side effects. Often the drugs are prescribed by different specialists who don’t communicate with each other. If those patients are hospitalized, doctors making the rounds add to the list — and some of the drugs they prescribe may be unnecessary or unsuitable.
“This is America’s other drug problem — polypharmacy,” said Maristela Garcia, director of the inpatient geriatric unit at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif. “And the problem is huge.”