title: Psychotropic medications in older adults: a review.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Prevalence of prescribing psychotropic medications, particularly inappropriate prescription, is widespread in older adults, both in nursing home residents as well as community-dwelling older adults. This review describes prevalence and prevention of inappropriate prescribing and risk factors associated with psychotropic medications.
  
  
  METHODS
  MEDLINE and GOOGLE SCHOLAR data base were searched for the key words "older adults", "psychotropic drugs", "inappropriate prescribing", "nursing home residents", "community-dwelling older adults". The study was limited to the articles published in English in the period from 2007 to 2014. The list of references includes additional articles that were searched manually.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The utilization of different psychotropic medications is prevalent among older adults worldwide, regardless of whether they live in nursing homes or in the community. Among older adults, nursing home residents are the most vulnerable individuals for potentially inappropriate drug prescription. The most common potentially inappropriate prescribed medications in the elderly are benzodiazepines, particularly long-acting, antipsychotics and antidepressants, particularly SSRIs. All classes of listed medications have been associated with different adverse events, particularly falls and falls-related fractures and increased risk for mortality. Many different pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions, such as monitoring polypharmacy, reviewing medications, spending more time in the institution by a physician, reducing the number of prescribers in the institution as well as greater involvement of geriatricians, general practitioners and pharmacists should be implemented to reduce this health issue.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The prevalence of prescribing psychotropic medications to older adults is high. Inappropriate prescribing of psychotropic drugs and polypharmacy are present in institutionalized and non-institutionalized older adults and can cause adverse health events, and can significantly reduce the quality of life of these vulnerable groups. Multidisciplinary approach is needed in addressing widespread problem of prevalence of psychotropic medications in older adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Family Medicine, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek, Medical School Osijek, Osijek, Croatia, mcurkov@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ćurković
authors.forename: Katarina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dodig-Ćurković
authors.forename: Anamarija Petek
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Erić
authors.forename: Kristina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kralik
authors.forename: Nela
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Pivac
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs