Centre for Policy on Ageing



Pharmacotherapy at the end-of-life
Author(s)	Denis O'Mahony, Marie N O'Connor
Journal title	Age and Ageing, vol 40, no 4, July 2011
Pages	pp 419-422
Source	http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/ http://www.bgs.org.uk/
Keywords	Terminal care ; Drugs ; Evaluation.
Annotation	Older people reaching the end of life are particularly at risk from the harmful effects of inappropriate drug use. These drugs may also be highly expensive. End-of-life pharmacotherapy is sometimes perceived to be complex and challenging, probably unnecessarily. This relates in part to the poorly developed evidence base and lack of high-quality research in this area. In this article the authors examine some of the key issues relating to pharmacotherapy in end-of-life patients, namely (i) the guiding principles of drug selection, (ii) the main drugs and drug classes that are best avoided, (iii) the benefits of `oligopharmacy' (i.e. deliberate avoidance of polypharmacy) in end-of-life patients. (JL).
Accession Number	CPA-110922001 A
Classmark	LV: LLD: 4C
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.