Reviewing polypharmacy in elderly

Increasing in elder population and life expectancy led to increase in prevalence rate of chronic illness and need for using several drugs. This issue could be reason for drug interaction in elderly.

This study has done with the aim of reviewing the prevalence rate in the elderly.

This is a review study. We have searched Persian keywords in Iranian databases such as Iranmex, Magiran and SID. In addition, we searched English keywords such as poly-pharmacy, elderly, and prevalence in well-known databases ProQuest, Google scholar, PubMed during 2005-2015.

In this study, we have found 200 articles, and then selected 19 articles in English and 2 articles in Persian language based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results of this study have categorized in three parts: prevalence rate, relative factors, prediction methods and polypharmacy consequences in the elderly.

Results of this review revealed that several articles emphasized on continuous monitoring for elder drugs in order to prevent of drug’s side effects. Therefore, we recommend that health care providers’ continuous education about ongoing monitoring, special attention to polypharmacy variables and predicting methods in elderly, would be effect for decreasing in drug’s side effects in elder people.