Drugs and Aging

It is not clear why medication use in the older population is so challenging, however, multiple interacting factors complicate medication use in seniors. Important issues include: increased disease burden; changes in physiology, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics with aging; patient and family expectations; poor patient-physician communication; over-the-counter medication use; using other people's medications; and the use of multiple physicians, to name a few. Lastly, seniors are often excluded from clinical trials that are conducted when drugs are being studied. Therefore when these drugs are marketed, they have not been extensively studied in older people, even though these are generally the patients most likely to receive them.