The use of multiple drugs and medications to treat diseases and other health conditions is known as polypharmacy. Oftentimes, older adults use several drugs to help manage and treat their different illnesses.
When multiple medications are combined together, they can lead to poor treatment effectiveness. Taking too many drugs and medications can lead to safety concerns, or increase the risk for adverse reactions. This may cause unintended issues, ultimately impacting the quality of life.
Optimizing medication through targeted deprescribing is a vital part of managing chronic conditions, avoiding adverse effects, and improving wellbeing. The goal of deprescribing is to ensure people are taking only the medications that are a good fit for them.
This new eLearning course is for long-term care health care professionals who are involved in prescribing, dispensing and monitoring the effects of medications. It will help improve your understanding of polypharmacy, the use of several medications, and provide you with an approach for deprescribing.
Learners will understand how polypharmacy develops over time, as well as how to recognize and address common drug-induced symptoms and prescribing cascades. Throughout this course, you will apply an approach for deprescribing to a fictional case.
Learn more about deprescribing. Visit www.deprescribing.org
The Bruyère Deprescribing Research Team would like to acknowledge the partnership of the Ontario Centres for Learning, Research and Innovation in Long-Term Care (CLRI) at Bruyère. This work is supported in part with funding from the Government of Ontario through the Ontario CLRI at Bruyère. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Province.