Home and community-based Medicaid options for dependent older Floridians.

In an era of widespread state budget constraints, Florida has been increasingly challenged to provide long-term care services to a growing population of older dependent persons. The high costs of nursing home care have led the state to implement care management alternatives that offer potential for cost savings along with greater consumer satisfaction through maintenance of community residence. Although these alternative care approaches represent important opportunities to contain costs, it is equally important that professional care providers and policymakers understand how such programs operate.

Developing explicit positive beers criteria for preferred central nervous system medications in older adults.

Background: The Beers criteria have been extensively used over the past decade to identify and evaluate potentially inappropriate medication use in adults 65 years of age and older in the United States. In contrast to the Beers criteria, the purpose of this pilot initiative was to develop a new set of explicit criteria for determining preferred (rather then potentially inappropriate) medications to use in older adults, using similar methodology as used in the three iterations of the Beers criteria. This initiative organized its evaluations around classes of medications that are both frequently used and associated with drug-related problems in older adults-central nervous system (CNS) medications.

Discontinuing medications: a novel approach for revising the prescribing stage of the medication-use process.

Thousands of Americans are injured or die each year from adverse drug reactions, many of which are preventable. The burden of harm conveyed by the use of medications is a significant public health problem, and therefore, improving the medication-use process is a priority. Recent and ongoing efforts to improve the medication-use process have focused primarily on improving medication prescribing, and not much emphasis has been put on improving medication discontinuation.

Health outcomes associated with potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults.

The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medication use (PIMs) among community-dwelling older adults and the association between PIMs and health care outcomes. Participants were 17,971 individuals age 65 years and older. PIM use was defined by the Beers criteria.

Propoxyphene use and risk for hip fractures in older adults.

Background: Published guidelines have identified propoxyphene as an inappropriate medication for use in aged patients. It is no more effective than acetaminophen, yet has been associated with the same adverse effects (AEs) associated with other opioid drugs. In particular, its central nervous system-related AEs, dizziness and sedation, may increase the risk for fracture resulting from falls in older adults.

National trends in and predictors of propoxyphene use in community-dwelling older adults.

Background: Several pain management guidelines and explicit medication-use criteria identify propoxyphene as an inappropriate medication for use in older adults.

Objective: This study was conducted to estimate trends in propoxyphene use among community-dwelling elderly (age > or = 65 years) Medicare beneficiaries from 1993 through 1999 and to determine whether beneficiaries' drug coverage and specific characteristics of their physicians were associated with receipt of propoxyphene in 1999.

Methods: Data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS) were used to examine the prevalence of propoxyphene use in cross-sections of nationally representative samples of community-dwelling elderly Medicare beneficiaries from 1993 through 1999.

The class effect: is it relevant to geriatrics?

The formulary of medications available today provides a remarkable range of choices to all prescribers and their patients. In some ways, choices have become easier to make, whereas in other ways, choosing has become a nightmare of dueling considerations. One approach to simplification has relied on class effect.

Trends in the prescription of inappropriate drugs for the elderly between 1995 and 1999.

Background: Using criteria developed by Beers et al between 1991 and 1997, previous studies have reported high levels of inappropriate drug prescribing for community-dwelling elderly patients (age>or=65 years). However, it is not known whether the Beers criteria have had a beneficial effect on prescribing practices.

Objectives: The aims of this study were to compare the prevalence of potentially inappropriate drug use (based on the Beers list) among older Americans between 1995 and 1999; to determine whether any decreases in such use were more likely to be the result of improved adherence to guidelines or of replacement of older medications by newer drugs; and to examine individual characteristics that place elderly patients at increased risk for inappropriate drug use.

Updating the Beers criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults: results of a US consensus panel of experts.

Background: Medication toxic effects and drug-related problems can have profound medical and safety consequences for older adults and economically affect the health care system. The purpose of this initiative was to revise and update the Beers criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in adults 65 years and older in the United States.

Methods: This study used a modified Delphi method, a set of procedures and methods for formulating a group judgment for a subject matter in which precise information is lacking.