Search results below include Worst Pills, Best Pills Newsletter Articles where your
selected drug is a secondary subject of discussion.
June 2011
This article lists 355 drugs with names that are often confused with similar-sounding drug names. Find out what you can do to prevent getting the wrong drug.
March 2009
The article lists 57 different drugs that can cause dementia if used. This can be even more problematic if more than one of these drugs is being taken. These drugs are only one class of drugs that can cause mental deterioration and next month's issue will discuss additional drugs that can also impair thinking.
September 2008
A nationwide study published in spring 2008 in the Journal of Hospital Medicine showed that nearly half (49 percent) of almost 500,000 hospital patients older than 65 have been prescribed one or more of 92 drugs known to be unnecessarily unsafe for older patients. 10,000 of these patients had four or more of these inappropriate medicines prescribed during their hospitalization.
Among the most common categories of adverse drug reactions these inappropriately prescribed drugs can cause are excessive sedation, abnormally low blood pressure and bleeding. We list the 92 drugs in the article and give further details about the kinds of side effects these drugs can cause.
August 2008
The article discusses 273 drugs that can have harmful interactions with alcohol. Also reviewed are several ways in which these harmful interactions can occur:
1/ Medications Can Increase Alcohol Blood Levels
2/ Additive effects of medications and alcohol. One of the best- known drug-alcohol interactions is when alcohol, a depressant, is taken with other sedative medications, and excessive sedation or depression of respiration can occur
3/Alcohol can increase the blood levels of some medications leading to toxicity of these drugs.
4/ Alcohol also can reduce blood levels of some medications causing them to be less effective.
Although some of the interactions between alcohol and medications mainly occur in people who drink heavily (three or more drinks on one occasion), many of these interactions may occur with much lower amounts of alcohol use, such as one to two drinks on an occasion.
We strongly urge you to tell your physicians and other health care providers how much alcohol you are drinking so they can effectively assess the risks and advise you about the safe use of alcohol and medications.
May 2008
Older patients are especially at increased risk for adverse drug reactions because of age-related factors.The article reviews nine reasons why this is the case and discusses what you can do about these often-preventable adverse reactions. Increasing awareness of this problem should result in the prescription of far fewer drugs to older adults, and those that are prescribed will be given at lower doses in most instances.
July 2003
You should check the list of drugs that can cause loss of bladder control before starting drug treatment for this condition. You may be able to change from a drug that causes loss of bladder control to a drug that does not or alter the dose. This may be enough to solve the problem.
February 2002
“Inappropriate medication use is a major patient safety concern, especially for the elderly population.” This is the first sentence of a study published in the December 12, 2001 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The majority of the 33 drugs in this study have been on the market for years........