Beers AGS 2019 criteria in very old hospitalized patients

• Autor(a) principal: Gorzoni,Milton Luiz
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Rosa,Ronaldo Fernandes
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista da Associação Médica Brasileira (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-42302020000700918
• topic: Aged, 80 and over; Pharmaceutical preparations; Inpatients; Potentially inappropriate medication list

SUMMARY OBJECTIVE To define the rates and types of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) for older adults according to the Beers AGS 2019 criteria in oldest-old patients (aged ≥80 years) hospitalized in an Internal Medicine ward. METHODS A retrospective analysis of prescriptions from medical records of oldest-old patients hospitalized in an Internal Medicine Teaching-Hospital ward using the Beers AGS 2019 criteria was performed. Data was also collected for gender, mean age, days of hospitalization, presence of feeding tube, delirium, and polypharmacy (≥5 drugs/day). The drugs listed in Table 2 of the Beers criteria were considered PIMs. RESULTS The series comprised 39 very old patients (22 men, 17 women), with a mean age of 86.3±4.7 years and hospitalization of 22.8±21.3 days. All patients were admitted via the Emergency Room. Feeding tube placement and polypharmacy occurred in 84.6% of cases and delirium in 71.8%. The prescription of a total of 16 drugs considered PIM was detected by the Beers AGS 2019 criteria (mean 1.8 ± 1.0 PIM per patient). Main prescribed PIMs were Metoclopramide “if necessary” [IN] (41.0% of cases), Omeprazole (38.5%), Regular Insulin [IN] (23.1%), Haloperidol [IN] (18.0%), Quetiapine and Amiodarone (10% each). CONCLUSION In the present series of oldest-old hospitalized patients, significant rates of PIM were found, especially for drugs prescribed as “If Necessary”, thereby increasing the risk of side-effects to that of the common polypharmacy in this age group.