Domiciliary therapy in an ultraoctogenarian population of inner Sicily--Troina

Drug assumption was studied in a rural population of octogenarians and over, in inner Sicily. The study was performed by means of interviews applying a questionnaire on 326 subjects, 162 males and 164 females, representing 91% of the entire age-matched population. Sixty subjects (18.4%) did not take any kind of medications, while 266 (81.6%) did take drugs, ranging from 1 to 10 different kinds of medicines daily, altogether 1001 different drugs were mentioned. Distribution of drugs related to organs and apparatuses as well as pharmacological features revealed a wide use of cardiovascular medications (about 50%), followed by drugs acting on gastrointestinal (18.9%), nervous (9.4%), respiratory (8.3%), locomotor (6.8%) and urogenital (1.5%) systems, and the rest included hormones, vitamins, antibiotics, etc. The study of patients' abilities in recognizing and properly assuming medications revealed that 20.7% of patients could not act autonomously, they were requiring a continuous aid. However, the overall consumption of drugs was relatively moderate and well addressed to the existing pathologies.