As we age, we become more likely to confront polypharmacy issues. Polypharmacy is defined as taking 5 or more medications per day. The study reported in The Lancet healthy longevity by Payne et al. 2025 had participants with a median of 4 health conditions and a median of 8 prescriptions. Even a comprehensive set up which involved several experts from medical doctors and pharmacists did not manage to achieve a significant improvement in polypharmacy outcomes in this experimental study with otherwise carefully matched intervention and control group. However, the mental health (measured in patients as “health-care-related quality of life”) slightly increased and the “treatment burden” experienced by patients was slightly reduced.
In combination with a previous study the probability of errors in nurses, who are the prime persons responsible for the administration of medications in institutionalized settings, the reduction of potentials for errors like they are to be found in polypharmacy should continue to be a prime target of this research in future. Together with the knowledge about the prevalence of functional illiteracy at older ages, polypharmacy remains a critical issue on the public health agenda beyond the experimental settings in this study.
