In general the prevalence of old people is high and frequently have multiple diseases and symtoms requiring treatment. The nature of illness in the elderly has to be faced, and drugs do have an important part in the treatment of that illness.
The purpose of this study were to describe health status and medication, and to provide some basic data for elderly´s health education, especially for the right medication.
Body mass index, self perceived health status, activities of daily living, disease and experience of past operation were surveyed to recognize the 249 elderly´s actual health status. The degree of the elderly´s understanding the way of medication, experience of side effects, experience of drug combination and incidence of drug adverse reaction along with drug combination were examined for medication.
The aged women(BMI ; 10.7±13.3%) overweighted the aged men(BMI ; 4.0±10.4%). 69.0% of them recognized their health good. Their activities of daily living were diminished following by the age group(p=0.0068) and relationship with self perceived health status were very significant(p%0.0005). They(192 elderly) suffered from multiple disease such as osteoarthritis(49.5%), hypertension(32.0%), gastric disorder(16.1%), diabetes(14.6%), osteomalacia(10.9%), cardiovascular disease(9.9%), senile cataract(5.7%), skin rash(5.2%), liver disease(4.2%), kidney disease(3.6%), spinal cord problem(3.6%), respiratory disease (2.1%), tuberculosis(1.0%) etc(1.0%).
28.3% of them replied that they had an operation for appendicitis, senile cataract, peptic ulcer, spinal cord problem, pleurisy, hemorrhoid and the rest. Most of them(87.4%) knew the way very well how to use drugs, and 21.6% of the replied 171 elderly experienced adverse drug reaction. Drug compliance rate were high(83.6%).
In our study 56.9% of the 167 elderly took several medicine together. And 18.9% of the 95 elderly who did drug combination had an experience of drug interaction. One person kept average 5.5 kinds of drugs at home among 243 elderly. They kept digestives(79.4%), ointments(68.7%), vitamins(59.7%), analgesics(59.7%), cold medicines(45.3%), antiarthritic drugs(33.3%), health foods(27.7%), antihypertensive drugs(25.1%), antipeptic ulcer drugs(24.7%), laxatives(19.8%), antacids(16.5%), antibiotics(16.5%), hypoglycemic agents(10.3%), cardiac stimulants(7.0%), diuretics(4.5%), antiarrhythmic drugs(4.9%), antianginal drugs(4.1%), hypnotics(3.3%), etc(38.3%).
With this result, we ascertain that polypharmacy in the elderly caused by multiple disease is common, which lead to drug interaction. So our task is to educate elderly how to use drugs in order to maximize their efficiency and to minimize their adverse effects.
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