The management of low back pain commonly includes pharmacological management. Some clinical practice guidelines for managing low back pain now recommend avoiding some medicines, such as opioid analgesics and gabapentinoids (pregabalin, gabapentin), as the benefit often does not outweigh the harms. In people with work-related [...]
Deprescribing is the process of a healthcare professional reducing or stopping an inappropriate medication. Statins, commonly prescribed to prevent cardiovascular events, pose uncertain benefits and potential harms for older adults, making deprescribing a preference-sensitive decision. Deprescribing studies typically ask general questions about deprescribing preferences; however, [...]
The OPPICO cohort is a population-based cohort based on non-identifiable electronic health records routinely collected from 464 general practices in Victoria, Australia, created with the aim of understanding opioid prescribing, policy impacts and clinical outcomes. The aim of this paper is to provide a profile [...]
Anticholinergic burden has been associated with adverse outcomes such as falls. To date, no gold standard measure has been identified to assess anticholinergic burden, and no conclusion has been drawn on which of the different measure algorithms best predicts falls in older patients from general [...]
Growing evidence suggests overuse of medications is widespread within low- and middle-income countries, across multiple drug classes, with few data of solutions from randomized trials. Opportunities exist to build collaborations to rigorously develop and evaluate potential solutions to reduce overuse of medications.
Researchers in Australia have developed and tested a conversation guide for pharmacists conducting medication reviews with older people. It addresses matters such as general health understanding, health priorities for medicines, the person’s goals and fears, views about what activities are important to them, and making [...]
Inappropriate polypharmacy, especially in older people, imposes a substantial burden of adverse drug events, ill health, disability, hospitalization, and even death. The single most important predictor of inappropriate prescribing and risk of adverse drug events in older patients is the number of prescribed drugs. Deprescribing [...]