Facilitating self medication in older persons

Abstract

It is a well known fact that 'persons aged 65 and older are the largest consumers of medication accounting for 30% of prescription drugs' (Kelly, M. 1996). The prescribing and administration of medicines always carried some degree of clinical risk. Such risk may relate to the medicine itself, the person himself or the systems and decision-making surrounding prescription, supply and administration. In the older age groups these risks are magnified, as they depend on the interaction between the drug and a human physiology and pathology that is aging. Drug treatment in older persons is made even more complex by the increased likelihood of coexisting disease processes and even more so when the older person is self administering his medications. Self-administering medications correctly can be a complex problem for the older person. Moreover, difficulties frequently encountered by these older persons both in the community and those living in long term residential facilities are rarely addressed. As a result, this will often give rise to more intricacies.