Weekly Comment 29 Aug 16 : Optimising medicine use in older people
August 29, 2016
ACCORDING to a review of
Australian and international
research recently published here
at CMUS, up to 74% of aged care
facility residents take nine or more
medicines on a regular basis.
Although multiple medicines
use may be unavoidable,
polypharmacy has been associated
with a variety of adverse events,
including falls, hospitalisations and
mortality.
One of our researchers, Associate
Professor Simon Bell, is leading
an expanding team of research
fellows, postdoctoral researchers
and PhD students generating
new evidence and strategies to
optimise medicine use in older
people.
A particular focus has been
residwential aged care. Residents
of aged care facilities are often
older, frailer and more susceptible
to adverse events than the
participants in clinical trials on
which clinical practice guidelines
are typically based.
The team has recently attracted
nationally competitive research
funding through the NHMRC
Cognitive Decline Partnership
Centre, NHMRC Frailty Centre
for Research Excellence and
Alzheimer’s Australia Dementia
Research Foundation.
Collaboration and stakeholder
engagement are key components
of the work. The team is
collaborating with a number
of aged care providers across
Australia, including Resthaven Inc.,
Helping Hand and the Victorian
Government Department of Health
and Human Services.
CMUS will host the Australian
Deprescribing Network (ADeN)
meeting on October 28.
This week’s contributor is Professor Carl Kirkpatrick, Director, Centre for Medicine Use and Safety, Monash University.
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