OPINION In the majority of cases, medications help patients. But even when treatment of individual illnesses is effective, treatment as a whole can become problematic. When we see an older family member handling a bulky box of medications sorted by day of the week, we might stop and wonder, is it too much? How do all those pills interact? The fact is, as we get older we are more likely to develop different chronic illnesses that require us to take several different medications.
This is known as polypharmacy. The concept applies to people taking five or more medications, but there are all sorts of definitions with different thresholds (for example, four, 10 or 15 medicines). I’m a pharmacist and pharmacoepidemiologist interested in polypharmacy and its impact on the population.
The research I carry out with my team at the Faculty of Pharmacy at Université Laval focuses on the appropriate use of medication by older family members..
