Many people require the daily use of multiple
medicines. Especially elderly people often take a lot of medication, but sometimes
also younger people need daily medicines in order to fight their health
problems. This regular use of medication is called ‘polypharmacy’ and it quite often
also has an impact on the quality of life. The University of Antwerp wants to
address this problem through the new Arega Chair ‘Quality of Life and Care for
Patients with Polypharmacy’.
Polypharmacy is defined as the chronic use of five or more medications daily – which is unfortunately a reality for a lot of people. Polypharmacy occurs in about a quarter of people aged 65 to 75, and in 58% among elderly people living at home. In this group, 9% even takes ten medicines or more. Those medications can be very important in maintaining or improving their health as much as possible, and thus increase the quality of life. However, taking multiple drugs simultaneously and for long periods of time is not always easy for the patient.
