Study: Many older Americans with heart failure take 10 or more meds
When older people hospitalized for heart failure are sent home, they are often given a whopping 10 medications to take for a variety of conditions.
But is this “polypharmacy” practice necessary, or does it just place a bigger burden on already frail patients?
It’s not a question so much of the quantity of the medications, but whether the medications patients are taking are the right ones for them, said senior study author Dr. Parag Goyal, a geriatric cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian in New York City.
“It’s not just that we’re not starting the right medications, there may be situations where we’re not stopping the wrong medications as well,” Goyal said. “I think we need to look at the medication that older adults with heart failure take in a more holistic fashion.”
For the study, Goyal’s team examined the medical charts of 558 adults aged 65 and older who were hospitalized in
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