Managing several conditions at once
Many older people are living with more than one long-term condition, and many are taking eight or ten medications. When these are started, they often have a very valid reason for being prescribed. But over time older people can accumulate multiple medicines, sometimes prescribed by different specialists.
The limitation is that there is often nobody looking at the whole picture. Treatments that make sense individually can work against each other. A tablet for blood pressure contributes to dizziness. Some bladder medications can affect memory over the long term. A painkiller causes constipation, which is then treated with something else. Over years, medication lists grow, and the original reason for a drug started long ago is often lost.
When several conditions and medications act on one another, the result is frequently blamed on age. But in many cases profound tiredness, unsteadiness, poor appetite, muddled thinking and low mood can be improved by optimising treatment and rationalising medications.
This approach is core to geriatric medicine, which focuses on looking at everything together, working out what is contributing to what, and deciding with you which things matter most.
How Professor Henderson can help
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A full review of every medication, including what each one is still doing for you and whether it is still needed.
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Identifying where treatments may be working against one another, or causing the symptoms being blamed on something else.
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Stopping medication safely where that is the right thing, which is done carefully and very gradually.
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Considering how your conditions interact, rather than treating each in isolation.
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Agreeing what matters most to you, so that the plan reflects your priorities rather than a set of separate guidelines.
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A clear written summary for you and, with your agreement, for your GP and other specialists.