Analysis of the Polypharmacy

Polypharmacy
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Polypharmacy
According to Masnoon et al. (2017), the term polypharmacy has no agreed international definition with the varied definitions causing a lot of confusion in medicine and research. Masnoon et al. (2017) agree that a patient on more than five medicines is guilty of practicing polypharmacy. From an epidemiological point of view, Morin et al.( 2018) define polypharmacy as using multiple drugs by one person consequential of concurrently occurring illnesses. According to Zitnik et al. (2018), polypharmacy is the prescription of several drugs combined to counter complex diseases and underlying medical conditions.
Risk factors refer to the driving forces towards polypharmacy. Old age is the most probable risk factor for polypharmacy, with 39 percent of the American elderly population exposed to polypharmacy (Morin et al., 2018). In addition, complex diseases require a patient to seek multiple physicians who will prescribe different medications for the patients, hence exposing the patient to polypharmacy. Additional risk factor for polypharmacy has to do with the updating and managing medical records and prescriptions. Poorly prescribed medications, as mere as poor handwriting, can lead to polypharmacy.
To avert poorly prescribed medication, health facilities can employ tools such as the Medication Appropriateness Index and Screening Tool of Older Persons’ Potentially Inappropriate Prescription (STOPP) (Halli-Tierney et al., 2019). Some prescription drugs from different specialists can serve the same purpose, making a prior assessment for drug duplication necessary in averting polyp...