Reconsidering Regular Medications at End of Life

October 28, 2016

(Medscape) – There appear to be very few discussions about discontinuing potentially inappropriate medications at the end of life, concludes a Dutch study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. “In practice, reconsidering an individual’s medication use in the last phase of life seems to be rare,” say the authors, led by Eric C.T. Geijteman, MD, from the Department of Public Health, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. “Therefore, people often take multiple medications that may not have beneficial effects in view of their limited life expectancy and changing organ function,” they note. These potentially inappropriate medications may cause side effects, and they also involve costs.