Drugs and the Older Person — A Brief Pharmacological Overview

Abstract

I take great pleasure in chairing this first session of the Second Philadelphia Symposium on Aging. This year’s topic focuses on pharmacological intervention of aging processes, a subject of enormous fundamental and practical interest. Too little is known about the changes in drug effects in relation to the age of the individual, and yet drugs are being administered more extensively to patients as they grow older. It is quite obvious that with increasing age there is a greater likelihood of illness, and therefore a greater need to use therapeutic agents, frequently on a chronic basis. With the increased consumption of medications by the geriatric population, and indeed an increase in this population as well, there is a greater likelihood of adverse drug reactions. The chance of an undesirable pharmaceutical complication may be enhanced even further because of drug-drug interactions.