Quedas e fraturas ósseas em idosos: perfil farmacoepidemiológico

Abstract

The increase in the number of elderly people is an important population change, increasingly significant in the country. Polypharmacy is an event quite common to that age group. She incurs risks, among others, in a greater likelihood of falls, occasionally leading to fractures, which may cause impairment of functional capacity. This study aims to describe the pharmacoepidemiological profile of the elderly who were being treated in a physiotherapy clinic and to correlate this information with the occurrence of falls and fractures in this population group. A structured questionnaire was applied to the elderly, or their caregivers, attended at the Integrated Physiotherapy Clinics of Itaúna University, from February to March, 2016. The sample was selected for convenience, being interviewed 60 patients, aged 60 years or more. The Criterion of Beers (2015) was used in the classification for the selection of drugs potentially inappropriate for the elderly. The pharmacological classes associated with falls and fractures related to the findings of this study were anticonvulsants, tricyclic antidepressants, benzodiazepines, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and opioids. Benzodiazepines were the most reported, followed by selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, with 75% of the elderly using at least one potentially inappropriate drug. Around 50% reported falling and 63,5% reported having had a bone fracture in the year 2015, not necessarily from falls. The largest number of falls occurred in the age group 65-69 years, female literacy. There were larger records of fractures on the radio and then on the spine. Falls and bone fractures in the elderly population are frequent and determine complications that affect negatively the quality of life. It highlights the importance of a multidisciplinary team able to monitoring of the elderly, which is also able to evaluate the pharmacotherapy as the risk associated with such events.