[Quality of life in the pharmacologically treated elderly patients]

The quality of life has been shown to decline with advancing age, being affected by health status, physical symptoms due to multiple chronic diseases, and the level of remaining activities of daily living of the elderly. In the pharmacologic treatment of the elderly, attention must be paid to such backgrounds and adverse side effects of drugs must be considered in order to maintain the QOL of the elderly which has already been jeopardized. Therefore, prescriptions should be consist of drugs concerning the effects on the QOL have been established. Physicians and medical personnels treating or caring for the elderly should take into account the balance between the quantity and the quality of their remaining life.