Abstract:
De-prescription or de-prescribing is a new idea in
clinical medicine. This is the structured way of
withdrawing of inappropriate medication supervised
by a health care professional with the goal of
managing polypharmacy and improving outcomes.
It is estimated that half of older adult patients are
treated with polypharmacy (five or more drugs).
The prevalence of Polypharmacy in the elderly is
higher, ranging from 30% to 70%, even reaching
90% in residents of some residential geriatric care
facilities in developed nations. Polypharmacy in the
elderly increases the risk of adverse reactions,
inappropriate prescriptions, drug interactions,
number of hospitalizations, costs, and even death.
Polypharmacy and CNS drugs increase fall risk by
about 50%. Withdrawal of psychotropic drugs
reduced falls by 66%. There are different
deprescribing models. These are focused especially
on elderly patients as well as on specific specialties
such as psychiatry. It includes meticulous evaluation
of the patient, identifying potentially inappropriate
medications, prioritizing drug discontinuation,
performing the deprescription and monitoring the
result bearing in mind the risks of deprescribing.
Key words-De-prescription, Deprescribing,
Polypharmacy