Half of elderly patients given ‘inappropriate medicine’ by GPs

MORE THAN half of elderly patients were prescribed unsuitable and, in some cases, potentially lethal medicines by their GPs, a new study has found.

The study of 600 hospitalised elderly patients by experts at Cork University Hospital (CUH) found that in almost six out of 10 cases GPs had not prescribed the best medicine to treat a specific condition.

It discovered that 52% of patients had been prescribed drugs that could counteract another drug that a patient was already taking to treat a different condition, and cause an adverse reaction.