1: Lancet. 2007 Jul 14;370(9582):173-84.

Appropriate prescribing in elderly people: how well can it be measured and
optimised?

Spinewine A, Schmader KE, Barber N, Hughes C, Lapane KL, Swine C, Hanlon JT.

Center for Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, Université catholique de
Louvain, Brussels, Belgium. anne.spinewine@facm.ucl.ac.be

Prescription of medicines is a fundamental component of the care of elderly
people, and optimisation of drug prescribing for this group of patients has
become an important public-health issue worldwide. Several characteristics of
ageing and geriatric medicine affect medication prescribing for elderly people
and render the selection of appropriate pharmacotherapy a challenging and complex
process. In the first paper in this series we aim to define and categorise
appropriate prescribing in elderly people, critically review the instruments that
are available to measure it and discuss their predictive validity, critically
review recent randomised controlled intervention studies that assessed the effect
of optimisation strategies on the appropriateness of prescribing in elderly
people, and suggest directions for future research and practice.

Publication Types: 
    Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
    Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
    Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

PMID: 17630041 [PubMed - in process]

Related Links

    Home-based medication review in a high risk elderly population in primary
care--the POLYMED randomised controlled trial. [Age Ageing. 2007] PMID:17387123

    Appropriateness of medication prescribing in ambulatory elderly patients. [J Am
Geriatr Soc. 1994] PMID:7983285

    A summated score for the medication appropriateness index: development and
assessment of clinimetric properties including content validity. [J Clin
Epidemiol. 1994] PMID:7730892

    Improving prescribing patterns for the elderly through an online drug utilization
review intervention: a system linking the physician, pharmacist, and computer.
[JAMA. 1998] PMID:9786375

    Measuring the appropriateness of prescribing in primary care: are current
measures complete? [J Clin Pharm Ther. 2005] PMID:16336285