Audience: GPs (all grades)

Care of the Older Person Webinar Series: Polypharmacy

What will this session cover?

Polypharmacy is the concomitant prescribing of multiple medicines usually 5 or more. It is an important and possibly preventable risk factor for adverse drug reactions with a huge cost burden in terms of related Hospital admissions as well as patient morbidity and mortality. Whilst Polypharmacy may improve symptom and disease management, it increases the risk of adverse drug reactions, drug-drug and drug-disease interactions, non-adherence and poor adherence to drugs, risk of the prescribing cascade, adverse health outcomes, increased mortality in frail older adults, increased health service use and costs.

This webinar will cover the definition and epidemiology of Polypharmacy, explore why Polypharmacy is important, delve into pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, cover adverse drug reactions and the prescribing cascade, explore common herbal medicines that older adults use, go through “how to go about deprescribing” using deprescribing tools that can be used to support clinical practice through the aid of a case and review discontinuation syndromes to watch out for.

After this webinar you will be able to:

• Define Polypharmacy and explain why it increases the risk of adverse drug reactions, drug- drug interactions and reduced quality of life,
• List causes of Polypharmacy and it’s consequences in relation to patients and the wider NHS,
• Recognise the common clinical presentations of Polypharmacy,
• Recognise the common prescribing cascades and identify the medicines that are more likely to cause problems in patients with Polypharmacy
• Start discussions with patients about medicines they are taking including over the counter and herbal medicines,
• Describe the main considerations and barriers to deprescribing and
  describe how they would use deprescribing tools to support ones practice as part of clinical judgement and experience
• Raise awareness of inappropriate Polypharmacy and understand that a cultural shift is required in healthcare and public awareness that multiple medicines in older adults may cause harm.

Extra features

Dedicated Q&A session

30 day on-demand access to the video recording and presentation slides

 Booking this webinar will give you a 10% discount for BMJ Learning

Benefits

CPD Certificate of participation

30 day access to webinar recording

 Flexible distance learning

 Watch in your own time

 1 CPD hour

 Includes speaker presentation slides