Age-Friendly Buncombe Community Blog
Age-Friendly Buncombe has lost a great friend and champion in Gene Knoefel, who passed away on October 18, 2021. You can read about Gene's life and many contributions to our local community here. You may also enjoy this recording of a celebration of his life, which took place on October 24, 2021.
This is National Pharmacy Week (October 18-24) so it seems like a good time to talk about the risks associated with taking too many medications. The past few decades have seen a tremendous jump prescription drug use. In 1994, just under 14% of older adults were taking five or more drugs. Today, more than four in ten older adults today fit this profile. If you include over-the-counter medications and supplements, the number rises to 67 percent.
Scientists call the use of five or more prescription medications a day polypharmacy. Of course, medications improve many people’s lives, and for those who have more than one chronic disease, multiple drugs may be necessary and beneficial. However, taking multiple medications increases one’s risk of suffering serious, sometimes life-threatening side effects.
Medication Overload is the term for the use of multiple medications for which the harm to the patient outweighs the benefit. There is no strict cutoff for when the number of medications becomes harmful, but the greater the number, the greater the likelihood of experiencing harm, including serious adverse drug events. In fact, the risk of an adverse drug event increases by 7-10% with each medication one takes. Every day, 750 people age 65+ in the US are hospitalized due to serious side effects from one or more medications.
Falls, delirium and death all increase with medication overload. Taking ten or more medications or more is associated with a 50% higher risk of falls, a 2.5 times greater likelihood of experiencing delirium compared to those taking fewer than five drugs, and a 96 percent greater chance of death!
We reached out about this topic to Age-Friendly Buncombe partner, Dr. Tasha Woodall, a Board-Certified Geriatric Pharmacist and Co-Director of for MAHEC’s Center for Healthy Aging. “Thankfully,” she said, “there’s a solution. Health care providers can partner with their patients and their families to create a plan for “de-prescribing” medications that can be harmful or have outlived their usefulness.”
Experts generally agree that older adults who take one or more drugs on a long-term basis should have an annual review of their medications, or prescription checkup. A prescription checkup involves reviewing a patient’s list of medications and the reasons they were prescribed and reducing the dose or stopping or pausing those that are ineffective or harmful.
To learn more, check out www.deprescribing.org
We wish to acknowledge the Lown Institute and their work on medication overload for this blog post.
A few posts back we shared the vision for a new Active Aging Center in Buncombe County, expected to open in January 2024. Well today is the first day of International Active Aging Week! This celebration of the positivity of aging today was first held in 2003. It showcases the capabilities of older adults engaging as full members of society.
Active Aging Week encourages all of us to raise our expectations about aging so that, regardless of age or health conditions, all adults over can live as fully as possible in all areas of life —physical, social, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, vocational, and environmental. Our Active Aging Center will be a place for engagement in each of these areas. We envision offering exercise classes and outdoor activities, support groups, mental health counseling, healthy food, classes and book clubs, volunteer, and employment opportunities, and much, much more!
Meanwhile, you can take advantage of many local and virtual offerings this week and beyond to expand your wellbeing in many areas of life. Here are a few ways to get started:
So go forth and get active!
