Benefits of deprescribing for older people with frailty and polypharmacy: part two
Intended for healthcare professionals
CPD    

Benefits of deprescribing for older people with frailty and polypharmacy: part two

Sue Lyne Frailty practitioner, East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, East Sussex, England

Why you should read this article:
  • To understand why polypharmacy is a significant issue for many older people, including those with frailty

  • To consider how you could use medication reviews and deprescribing to optimise medicines use in older people with frailty and polypharmacy

  • To count towards revalidation as part of your 35 hours of CPD, or you may wish to write a reflective account (UK readers)

  • To contribute towards your professional development and local registration renewal requirements (non-UK readers)

Polypharmacy is a significant issue for many older people, including those with frailty, and it is associated with a range of adverse effects. Therefore, it is important to address polypharmacy by optimising patients’ medicines use. Medication reviews are one of the main approaches to medicines optimisation, and various tools are available to support healthcare professionals with conducting these. Another approach is deprescribing, which can improve health outcomes for patients and may have financial benefits for healthcare organisations, but can also present various challenges. This article, the second of two parts, explores the benefits of medicines optimisation in the form of medication reviews and deprescribing for older people with frailty and polypharmacy.

Nursing Older People. doi: 10.7748/nop.2023.e1449

Peer review

This article has been subject to external double-blind peer review and checked for plagiarism using automated software

@Chatburn8Sue

Correspondence

sue.lyne@nhs.net

Conflict of interest

None declared

Lyne S (2023) Benefits of deprescribing for older people with frailty and polypharmacy: part two. Nursing Older People. doi: 10.7748/nop.2023.e1449

Published online: 20 September 2023

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