Medication Management and Medication Safety in Older Adults

Dear Colleagues,

I invite you to submit articles to our Special Issue on medication management and safety in older adults.

Managing medications becomes difficult for our older adult population. Older adults tend to have multiple comorbidities and most take more than five medications per day. Add to this the propensity to add over-the-counter medications and supplements, and the risks multiply. The number of medications used is a risk factor for adverse drug reactions, difficulty with adherence, drug interactions, falls/injuries, and financial burden. Many studies have shown that a greater number of medications used is a significant factor associated with frequent emergency department visits [1].

Polypharmacy often involves the use of inappropriate medications in older adults. Although there are many tools to assist with recognizing these medications, they are still frequently prescribed. Some medications started as an adult for an appropriate reason fall into this category as a patient ages. There are many proposed strategies for assisting patients with managing medications and improving medication safety in this population, but not much evidence with positive results.

This Special Issue welcomes articles of all types on this topic.

References:

1. Dufour, I.; Chouinard, MC.; Dubuc, N.; Beaudin,J.; Lafontaine S.; Hudon, C. Factors associated with frequent use of emergency-department services in a geriatric population: a systematic review. BMC Geriatr. 2019, 19, 185. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-019-1197-9

Dr. Carol Fox
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Ageing and Longevity is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• older adult
• medication management
• medication safety
• deprescribing