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Adverse drug events in the elderly

Adverse drug events in the elderly

Although low cost, warfarin remains one of the most dangerous medications in common usage. In fact, hospitalizations for adverse events in the elderly are much more likely to be caused by commonly used medications, such as warfarin, rather than medications classified as high risk in the elderly, according to a new study from the CDC. Researchers used a national database of adverse drug events from 2007-2009 to estimate the frequency and rates of hospitalization after emergency department visits for adverse events in older adults to assess the risk of specific medications causing this hospitalization. It is estimated that adverse drug events led to nearly 100,000 hospitalizations during the 2-year period with nearly half among adults 80 years of age or older. Nearly two-thirds of the hospitalizations were due to unintentional overdoses. Four medications or medication classes were implicated alone or in combination in 67% of hospitalizations including warfarin (33.3%), insulins (13.9%), oral antiplatelet agents (13.3%), and oral hypoglycemic agents (10.7%). High-risk medications were implicated in only 1.2% of hospitalizations. The authors suggest that efforts to promote the safe management of antithrombotic and antidiabetic agents have the potential to substantially reduce harm to our older patients (N Engl J Med 2011;365:2002-2012). This study points out that we may be spending too much effort in managing "high-risk" medications in the elderly, while warfarin alone is responsible for a third of medication-related hospitalizations.