Pharmaceutical intervention in the pharmacological therapy of elderly patients in San Luis-ECUADOR.

Abstract

Population's aging leads to a frequent usage of pharmaceutical medications to treat or control various ailments because of aging, increasing the probability of occurrence of problems related to its usage. The primary objective of this study was to conduct pharmaceutical interventions in elderly patients from San Luis - Riobamba, using surveys to identify the sociodemographic characteristics, diseases, and medicines usage. Once the problems related to pharmacological therapy were identified, pharmaceutical interventions were carried our prior the acceptance of each patient. The study had the participation of 422 elderly patients, with the prevalence of females (59.7%), aged between 60 and 70 years (45.5%); we identified that 82.5% of the elderly patients have diseases, finding that joint pain such as Arthritis/Osteoarthritis has the higher incidence (38.8%), and 50% of the surveyed people consume medication to treat the disease. 40.28% (n=170) of the participants conciliate the treatment review to identify any medication-related problem (MRP), finding interactions (21.2%) and adverse effects probability (21.2%), starting from the PRM identified, 170 pharmaceutical interventions were conducted, considering as priority (67.6%) the education on non-pharmacological measures. The pharmaceutical interventions done through the study benefited the elderly patients and will contribute to reduce the appearance of PRM.