Taking pharmaceutical drugs are a common occurrence among today’s elderly and undoubtly something all of us will face sometime in our lives. It was disturbing to read that the use of some of these drugs is one of the most common causes of emergency room visits by elderly patients. In a recent article posted on MSN it was noted that “the blood thinner warfarin, the diabetes drug insulin, and the heart drug digoxin were the cause of about 58,000 emergency room visits by people age 65 and older”( Budnitz).

With all of the research and development money that goes into producing these drugs I personally find it ridiculous that a number so large would be contributed to emergency room visits traced back to the use of these drugs. With the rising cost of healthcare and the risk associated with taking such risky drugs it’s a wonder that these drugs would still be prescribed, and upon being prescribed such drugs that a patient would pay the outrageous price to take them. I think that the government along with the major drug companies should spend more time and money developing ways to use and properly dose such high profile drugs to reduce possible complication from developing.

Resources:

Daniel Budnitz, M.D., medical officer, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta; Knight Steel, M.D., chief of geriatrics, Hackensack University Medical Center, New Jersey; Dec. 4, 2007, Annals of Internal Medicine

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/aging/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100182460