The American journal of geriatric pharmacotherapy
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Am J Geriatr Pharmacother · Jun 2010
Repeat medication errors in nursing homes: Contributing factors and their association with patient harm.
Medication errors are highly prevalent in long-term care facilities and are responsible for preventable injury. Repeat medication errors, or identical events occurring multiple times in the same patient, may be particularly preventable. ⋯ Repeat medication errors in nursing homes are a common occurrence and have greater odds of being associated with harm than do nonrepeat errors. Future patient-safety research should focus on factors related to repeat errors.
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Am J Geriatr Pharmacother · Jun 2010
Analgesic use among community-dwelling people aged 75 years and older: A population-based interview study.
Pain is often underrecognized and undertreated among older people. However, older people may be particularly susceptible to adverse drug reactions linked to prescription and nonprescription analgesics. ⋯ Analgesics were used by approximately 50% of community-dwelling people aged >or=75 years. However, age was not significantly associated with increased use of analgesics in multivariate analysis. The majority of analgesic drugs were used on an as-needed rather than a daily basis (76.7% vs 23.3%, respectively). Factors most significantly associated with analgesic use were female sex, living alone, poor self-rated health, and use of >or=10 nonanalgesic drugs.
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Am J Geriatr Pharmacother · Jun 2010
Prescribing patterns and predictors of high-level polypharmacy in the elderly population: A prospective surveillance study from two teaching hospitals in India.
Polypharmacy has been reported to increase the risks for inappropriate prescribing, adverse drug reactions, geriatric syndromes, and morbidity and mortality in elderly populations in the United States and Europe. Data on prescribing patterns and polypharmacy in the elderly population in India are limited. ⋯ The campaign for rational drug use in hospitalized elderly patients in India should promote pantoprazole, ceftriaxone, and atorvastatin prescribing in concordance with their indications. Interventions to reduce the high-level polypharmacy in the elderly during their stays in tertiary care hospitals in India should focus on patients with >/=3 diagnoses, angina pectoris, and/or >or=10 days of hospital stay.
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Valproate sodium, a commonly used antiepileptic drug (AED), is effective for the treatment of status epilepticus and is often used as a second-line agent when other AEDs are contraindicated. Some studies have reported that infusion of valproate sodium is generally well tolerated, whereas other studies have reported various degrees of hypotension during infusion. The objective of this case report was to call attention to the potential risk of hypotension after intravenous infusion of valproate sodium. ⋯ In this case report, infusion of valproate sodium at a rate of 14 mg/min was a probable cause of hypotension in a 75-year-old man.
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Am J Geriatr Pharmacother · Apr 2010
Case ReportsSeparate episodes of delirium associated with levetiracetam and amiodarone treatment in an elderly woman.
Delirium related to levetiracetam has not been previously described in the literature and is infrequently associated with amiodarone. ⋯ This case report describes separate episodes of delirium probably related to treatment with levetiracetam and amiodarone in an elderly patient.