2015: Vol 2, Sup 1 (2015)

Because older patients are more vulnerable to adverse drug-related events, there is a need to ensure appropriate pharmacotherapy in these patients. Screening to identify older patients at risk of drug-related problems (DRP) and adverse drug reactions (ADR) is the first critical step within a multistep approach to geriatric pharmacotherapy.

The Structured Tool to Reduce Inappropriate Prescribing (STRIP) is a method to perform a medication review. Part of this method is the pharmaceutical analysis that is digitalized into the STRIPassistant (demo: www.ephor.eu). The effectiveness and time-efficiency of the STRIPassistant will be presented.

Nowadays, there is no doubt that there is a good epidemic of ageing with the inversion of the population pyramid. There is no doubt either about the current epidemic of obesity and bad nutritional habits that have resulted in an increase of diabetic patients in the world. And the union of these epidemics has led to an increase of diabetes (DM) in the elderly.

The percentage of elderly population is increasing and it is estimated that by 2050 30% of the population in developed countries will be over 65. Elderly often have multiple chronic diseases that require multiple medications.

Screening Tool of Older Persons’ Prescriptions (STOPP)/Screening Tool to Alert to Right Treatment (START) criteria was first published in 2008, primarily as an alternative set of explicit criteria for potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) to Beers criteria.

Multimorbidity patients pose severe challenges to which information and communication technology (ICT) can help patients and doctors to answer with effective and efficient care.

Adverse drugs reactions (ADRs) in the older population are a major healthcare problem resulting in significant morbidity, healthcare consumption and high costs.

Malnutrition and nutritional problems are common in older adults. Multiple chronic disease, inflammation, cognitive and functional impairment, geriatric syndromes (including delirium, falls or chronic pain) and drug use (i.e. polypharmacy, adverse drug reactions) may play a role in the onset of malnutrition and nutritional problems.

Multimorbidity, the co-occurrence of multiple chronic conditions in an individual, and the frequently associated multimedication is a health issue mostly dealt with in primary care consultations.