Q: I recently saw on TV that the average person over the age of 60 takes two to six prescribed medications every day. This is not counting over-the-counter pills such as vitamins. I think that many of my senior friends take a lot more than that.
A: It is true that some seniors take as many as 10 pills a day. One of the reasons is that nearly 80 percent of seniors have at least one chronic illness.
Some surveys have discovered that as many as 60 percent of older people do not take their medications properly as prescribed and each year people die or become seriously ill as a result. Often, this is not the fault of the doctor. Instead, patients may be confused about whether they have taken a pill so they take another one anyway.
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One way of dealing with this problem is to use a weekly dispenser, where the pills are counted out each week and placed in slots labelled for each day and also the time of day. You can get these from your pharmacist and he may be able to fill them for you.
As the kidneys age along with the rest of the body, they may be less efficient than in younger people. The kidneys play an important role in eliminating waste from medications. Kidney function may also be reduced due to such diseases as hypertension and diabetes, which are more common in the elderly. As a result, the dosage of medications may need to be reduced after age 65.
Another reason for the elderly taking too many medications is that they may visit more than one family doctor as well as seeing several different specialists.
Each physician may be unaware of the pills prescribed by their colleagues and may give additional or conflicting medication.
This problem could be solved by having one main doctor who is responsible for co-ordinating all prescriptions. In other words, do not fill a prescription from another doctor until you have run it past the one who is the co-ordinator.
I suggest a “brown bag” day once a year when you bring all your bottles of pills, as well as your over-the-counter medications, to the doctor so that he can identify expired or incompatible prescriptions.
Some provinces are working on a “smart” health card that when fed into a computer will give the doctor a complete history of what medications you are taking, blood tests and X-ray results, which will help stop duplication of services.
Not only will this make it safer for the individual, but it should save health-care dollars.
Clare Rowson is a medical doctor with a practice near Belleville, Ont. Her columns are intended for general information only. Individuals are encouraged to also seek the advice of their own doctor regarding medical questions and treatments.
