SUMMARY
Background: Residents in institutions are characterized by multimorbidity, a worsened functional status in basic and instrumental activities of daily living, an increased number of cognitive disorders, geriatric syndromes, polypharmacy and by gradual ageing. Pharmacotherapy of the elderly in the establishments of social care belongs to the most important and topical issues of the health care for seniors.
Patients and methods: In 2001, we observed pharmacotherapy in a large group of 1758 seniors dwelling in various types of establishments of social care in the region of Trnava. From this group we chose one establishment and compared the pharmacotherapy provided in 2001 with the therapy in the same institution at the end of 2010.

In 2001, the given pensioners’ home was inhabited by 151 residents whose mean age was 75.1 yr. In 2010, the given institution for seniors was inhabited by 146 residents with mean age 77.5 yr. We observed and compared the overall number of regularly used medications, polypharmacy (simultaneous use of 5 or more medications), excessive polypharmacy (simultaneous use of 10 or more drugs). For statistical evaluation we used t-test and c2 test.
Results: On 2001, seniors regularly used 5.9 medications on average while in 2010 their average regularly consumption rose to 7.6 medications. The increase in the number of medications was statistically significant. The increase in the number of regularly used drugs was observed in both genders and in the age groups up to 74 years and 75+ years. In relation to our study, we ascertained polypharmacy with a statistically significant increase in the number of seniors from 68.2 % to 82.9 %, and excessive polypharmacy with an increase from 9.3 % to 28.1 %.
Conclusion: Throughout a period of nine years we observed an increase in the number of regularly used medications and stated polypharmacy in the case of the elderly residing in the social care facilities. It is questionable if polypharmacy is caused by ageing of the residents, geriatrisation of medicine, worse health condition, improvements in diagnostics or by inappropriate medication.
Key words: seniors, elderly, pharmacotherapy, polypharmacy, social institution, resident.
Lek Obz, 2020, 69 (6): 190-193

Ivan BARTOŠOVIČ, Katarína ZRUBÁKOVÁ, Peter MIKUS, Irina ŠEBOVÁ

1St. Elizabeth University of Health and Social Work, Bratislava
2Faculty of Health, Catholic University, Ružomberok
3Faculty of Medicine, Slovak Medical University, Bratislava
4Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Bratislava