Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Polypharmacy, the use of multiple prescription medicines, is an increasing public health concern given that it is associated with complications in older people including increased risk of falls, side effects, and drug-drug interactions that reduce medication benefit. With an ageing population, increasingly diagnosed with multiple chronic conditions, management of appropriate treatment can be complex. Avoidance of unnecessary prescriptions is important in order to ensure that older people do not suffer unnecessarily from illness due to excessive, inappropriate, or inadequate medicine consumption.
To reduce the risk of inappropriate prescribing, healthcare providers require improved decision making tools and more information on medication optimization. Patients also benefit from education that increases their confidence in continuing or discontinuing medication and their quality of life can also be improved through assessment of treatment adherence failure and simplification of medication management.
This Collection will bring together primary research that considers incidence of polypharmacy and its impact on patients over 60 or evaluates interventions to reduce inappropriate prescription.