Alternative Treatments to Selected Medications in the 2023 American Geriatrics Society Beers Criteria®

The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Beers Criteria® serve to identify medications whose potential for harm outweighs their intended benefit in older adults. This highlights the need for guidance not only on what therapies to avoid but also on readily available alternative treatment strategies. AGS thus convened a multidisciplinary, interprofessional panel to develop a list of these alternative treatment strategies for older adults based on guidelines and evidence, updating an earlier effort published in 2015. This report presents these in a manner intended to be easily usable by front-line clinicians facing common clinical scenarios. The list includes pharmacologic alternatives to medications on the AGS Beers Criteria® as well as non-pharmacologic management strategies that are often safer and equally or more effective than the potentially inappropriate medications they are replacing. Clinician, patient, and caregiver resources are also provided to support the implementation of alternative treatment strategies in clinical practice.