Elderly Put At Risk By Needless Medication, Study Finds

One of the main reasons people give for disbelieving the claims of Happeh Theory, chief among them that masturbation will make a human being blind and crippled, is that scientists claim masturbation is harmless. For that reason this website highlights the fact that scientists are constantly being proven to be wrong about pronouncements they make, and scientific advice is constantly being shown to be harmful and even cause death among people who follow that advice. The hope is that when readers are confronted with all of the situations where scientists are proven wrong or their advice is proven harmful, they will discard their blind trust in scientists and become more open to the claims of Happeh Theory.

The study that this post is based on has found that older people are frequently put at risk from being prescribed needless medications. The only reasons that come to mind for prescribing elderly people drugs that do not help them and actually put them at risk, is either incompetence on the part of doctors, or profit making by the doctors themselves or the institution they work for.

If the doctors are incompetent, then why would anyone believe them when they state that masturbation is harmless? And if they are prescribing drugs only to make money and not for health purposes, then maybe doctors say masturbation is harmless because they have been paid by somebody to make a claim that they know to be false. The study that this post is based on is reprinted below.

A third of elderly patients may be being prescribed unnecessary medication, putting them at needless risk of side-effects and costing the NHS millions, a study has shown.

A review of 1,800 over 75s at NHS Croydon found that the average patient had been prescribed six different drugs.

But after a reassessment hundreds of prescriptions were cancelled, with up to one third of patients taken off at least one drug.

Hundreds of prescriptions were stopped because they were no longer effective and dozens because the patients were experiencing side effects or drug reactions.

A further 121 patients were sent to their GP for further review, and 89 patients had their dose reduced.

The most common drugs which were stopped were the blood-thinning drugs warfarin and clopidogrel, aspirin, alendronic acid for osteoposrosis, cetirizine for hay fever and allergies, laxido for constipation, omeprazole for gastric reflux and adcal-d3, a drug to boost calcium and vitamin levels.

The research, carried out by pharmaceutical consultants Interface Clinical Services, predicted that the changes would save the NHS around £192,000 a year. However there are more than 5 million over 75s in Britain, which suggests that the cost savings across the country if everyone was similarly assessed could amount to millions.

Charities said polypharmacy – in which patients are prescribed a number of drugs – was becoming an increasing problem.

Caroline Abrahams, Charity Director at Age UK, said: “We know that the more medications you take, the greater the risks, such the risk of giddiness and of falling. This is because of what happens when ?different drugs interact and in the worst cases older people can even end up in hospital.

“This will be an increasing problem as our population ages, with as many as three million older people expected to be regularly taking multiple medicines by 2018.

“It is therefore extremely important that it becomes routine for older people to have their medication reviewed regularly, and the more drugs they are taking the more important this is.”

Katherine Murphy, Chief Executive of The Patients Association, added: “The Patients Association has been aware for some time about the problem of patients being prescribed too many different medicines, often with one medicine being prescribed to reduce the symptoms of another.

“The lack of any regular review of a patients medication sometimes over several years, is concerning, particularly for vulnerable older people who may feel unable or are unwilling to challenge this aspect of their care.

“We welcome any initiative to improve this situation in the interests of patient safety. The research highlights that medication is often not required, may have limited benefits and can be unnecessarily expensive.”

Four out of five people aged 75 or over now take at least one prescribed medication, and patients on multiple medications are more likely to suffer drug side effects and adverse reactions. Adverse reactions and side effects from drugs account for between five per cent and 17 per cent of all hospital admissions

“There is a clear and steady increase in the number of patients admitted to hospital with drug related side effects ,” said a spokesman for Interface.

“By conducting this kind of clinical assessment in primary care practices, Interface is helping to reduce drug-related adverse events in over 75s and decrease the burden that they place on secondary care services.”

The research was presented at the Royal College of GPs annual conference.