The administration of medication is the final act of a doctor for treatment or prevention of various diseases, but also to relieve various symptoms.

However, medication may hide and some risks, particularly in the elderly, not only the aging of the various tissues, and because of the large number of drugs taken.

Polypharmacy is the simultaneous use of several drugs in the treatment of a disease in the sense of indiscriminate or excessive non-scientific prescriptions. I refer to the patient receiving more than you really need. A typical sample risks of polypharmacy is the large number of our fellow citizens who come to emergency departments of hospitals with acute problems resulting from medication (allergies, acute renal failure, electrolyte disturbances, bleeding, etc.). An elderly on average takes 4-5 day prescription drugs and 1-2 alone. According to the National Medicines Agency, our country ranks first in EU countries in terms uncontrolled and irrational use of medicines. Antibiotics, multivitamins, gastroprotection drugs-NSAIDs -farmaka, awarded for wear diseases hold the first place.

The polypharmacy is a great danger especially for people over 65 years and is rightly considered the epidemic of the century. They take a lot more drugs than you withstand their organization resulting burden of various organs such as liver, kidney, central nervous system, digestive. The combinations of certain drugs are dangerous and can prove fatal.

Many drugs when administered in combination with other, by interaction of the active substances are highly hazardous. The elderly often take drug combinations because they suffer more than one disease, the interaction of the active substances there is a risk of deregulation of a disease or an increase in toxic effects in vital organs of the body, resulting in adverse effects that are much more severe the disease. The many medical visits of patients to doctors of various specialties made as the initiative for most of the patients are a key factor in increased prescribing large number and wide variety of drugs.

In this case there is a clear lack of family physician in other countries playing the role of coordinator. Furthermore sometimes the specialist doctor is not aware of all medications the patient is taking for other health fenders so it becomes a vicious circle. Observe patient receives two different formulations, but with the same active substance. The result is the appearance of toxic reactions in the body. In other cases be taken without reason drugs for many years because once a doctor issued them. The responsibility of the media for polypharmacy lies mainly doctors, pharmacists and the same state. The ignorance that prevails in the world in terms of the risks posed by the irresponsible use of drugs should be eliminated. To this can primarily help physicians. The adoption of electronic prescribing may greatly help.

For safe use of medicines, the patient should be aware of:
– The trade name of all the medicines they take.
– Be aware of side effects.
– To have a doctor who knows in detail all medicines with them.
– When visiting another doctor to have a list of all medications.
– To ask the doctor how long it will take drugs and what are the side effects.
– Do not take medicines by themselves before asking their doctor.