An Overview of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses on the Effect of Medication Interventions Targeting Polypharmacy for Frail Older Adults
Verma, Aparna ; Saha, Sanjib LU ; Jarl, Johan LU
; Conlon, Ellen
; cGuinness, Bernadette
and Trépel, Dominic
(2023)
In Journal of Clinical Medicine
12(4).
- Abstract
- Frailty refers to the lack of resilience and a reduction in a person’s ability to recover following a health problem, and it is increasingly becoming a challenging aspect of ageing populations.Many older adults are exposed to polypharmacy; i.e., they continue to be on medications without timely re-evaluation. Medication reviews have proven successful in managing polypharmacy in the general population, but there is uncertainty regarding their effect among frail older adults. This overview of published systematic reviews assesses the impact of medication reviews on polypharmacy in frail older adults. Embase was searched from its inception to January 2021 and 28 systematic reviews were identified, out of which 10 were included in the... (More)
- Frailty refers to the lack of resilience and a reduction in a person’s ability to recover following a health problem, and it is increasingly becoming a challenging aspect of ageing populations.Many older adults are exposed to polypharmacy; i.e., they continue to be on medications without timely re-evaluation. Medication reviews have proven successful in managing polypharmacy in the general population, but there is uncertainty regarding their effect among frail older adults. This overview of published systematic reviews assesses the impact of medication reviews on polypharmacy in frail older adults. Embase was searched from its inception to January 2021 and 28 systematic reviews were identified, out of which 10 were included in the overview. Medication reviews were the most common intervention in 8 out of 10 systematic reviews. The frailty score was reported as an outcome in one systematic review that found no evidence for fundamental pharmacological effects on frailty. Six systematic reviews reported a statistically significant reduction in the number of inappropriately prescribed medications. Four systematic reviews reported on hospital admissions,
with two of them reporting a decrease in hospitalisations. The quality assessment was moderate in six and critically low in four of the systematic reviews. We conclude that medication reviews help in reducing the use of inappropriate medications in frail older adults, but that there is insufficient evidence in terms of frailty score and hospital admissions. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/a2c04e61-a79c-4d05-afc2-607fa8894286
- author
- Verma, Aparna
; Saha, Sanjib
LU
; Jarl, Johan
LU
; Conlon, Ellen
; cGuinness, Bernadette
and Trépel, Dominic
- organization
- publishing date
- 2023-02-09
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- frailty, medication interventions
- in
- Journal of Clinical Medicine
- volume
- 12
- issue
- 4
- article number
- 1379
- pages
- 14 pages
- publisher
- MDPI AG
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85148941313
- pmid:36835915
- ISSN
- 2077-0383
- DOI
- 10.3390/jcm12041379
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- a2c04e61-a79c-4d05-afc2-607fa8894286
- date added to LUP
- 2023-02-10 09:17:00
- date last changed
- 2023-05-13 03:00:05
@article{a2c04e61-a79c-4d05-afc2-607fa8894286,
abstract = {{Frailty refers to the lack of resilience and a reduction in a person’s ability to recover following a health problem, and it is increasingly becoming a challenging aspect of ageing populations.Many older adults are exposed to polypharmacy; i.e., they continue to be on medications without timely re-evaluation. Medication reviews have proven successful in managing polypharmacy in the general population, but there is uncertainty regarding their effect among frail older adults. This overview of published systematic reviews assesses the impact of medication reviews on polypharmacy in frail older adults. Embase was searched from its inception to January 2021 and 28 systematic reviews were identified, out of which 10 were included in the overview. Medication reviews were the most common intervention in 8 out of 10 systematic reviews. The frailty score was reported as an outcome in one systematic review that found no evidence for fundamental pharmacological effects on frailty. Six systematic reviews reported a statistically significant reduction in the number of inappropriately prescribed medications. Four systematic reviews reported on hospital admissions,<br/>with two of them reporting a decrease in hospitalisations. The quality assessment was moderate in six and critically low in four of the systematic reviews. We conclude that medication reviews help in reducing the use of inappropriate medications in frail older adults, but that there is insufficient evidence in terms of frailty score and hospital admissions.}},
author = {{Verma, Aparna and Saha, Sanjib and Jarl, Johan and Conlon, Ellen and cGuinness, Bernadette and Trépel, Dominic}},
issn = {{2077-0383}},
keywords = {{frailty; medication interventions}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{02}},
number = {{4}},
publisher = {{MDPI AG}},
series = {{Journal of Clinical Medicine}},
title = {{An Overview of Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses on the Effect of Medication Interventions Targeting Polypharmacy for Frail Older Adults}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm12041379}},
doi = {{10.3390/jcm12041379}},
volume = {{12}},
year = {{2023}},
}