Dangerous brew

Polypharmacy, the use of multiple medications concurrently, is common among the elderly. Beers and Ouslander report that older North Americans consume 4.5 medications on average at any one time. In Canada, seniors take 25 per cent of all prescriptions but comprise only 12 per cent of the population. And according to Cartwright, 50 per cent of Britain's seniors take two or more medications on a regular basis.