The annual number of items prescribed to older people has risen from 14
Posted by adminThe annual number of items prescribed to older people has risen from 14.6 on average in 1985 to 21.8 in 1995. The cost of each prescription rose from pounds 4.10 to pounds 7.55 and accounted for almost half the increase in health authority drugs bills over the decade. Although older people make up 18 per cent of the population they receive 45 per cent of all prescriptions dispensed.The report, an update of an earlier one published in 1984, says that the rapid growth in prescribing to the elderly suggests many patients are receiving inappropriate or unnecessary treatment as well as placing an increasing burden on the NHS drugs bill.Adverse reactions are three times more common among the over-60s compared with the under-30s, mainly because they take more drugs. Innovations by the pharmaceutical industry have greatly increased the range of medicines suitable for older people but "more attention must be paid to making sure the medicines given are both suitable and effective," the report says.Dr Denham said doctors under pressure tended to have a reflex response to certain conditions such as dizziness in older people and prescribe a tranquilliser without investigating further.
"If you leave them on tranquillisers they may end up with symptoms of Parkinsonism ... There is a tendency to treat the symptom rather than the disease."However, underprescribing is also a problem, driven by some doctors' ageist approach to treatment. The report says there is evidence that older people benefit more from drugs for heart conditions and high blood pressure than younger people, yet they are less likely to receive them."It is sad to note that ... the attitudes of some doctors [remain] fixed to the concept of chronological age rather than biological age - the capacity of an individual to benefit," it says.. The portrait is headed "HRH The Prince Of Wales, Patron of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, at Highgrove". It is perhaps the most unusual portrait yet of the Prince, with the artist attempting to stress his patronage of the Royal College by exploring a troubled psyche. The 6ft-high painting shows Prince Charles, who is Patron of the Royal College, standing at the door of a drawing room in Highgrove, his Gloucestershire home.
The artist is Michael Noakes, who has spent three years working on the portrait. He has also painted Margaret Thatcher and President Clinton and is a past chairman of the Contemporary Portrait Society. He said yesterday: "I wanted to avoid painting a proud Prince ... although it shows I hope a man with intelligence and humour, it implies too the sad side of his life."He added: "I have done something that is unusual by any standards and that is unique with royal portraits, for the canvas is not a regular shape. It follows the line of the architrave around the doorway and the angle of the open door itself: the base is shaped around the tip of his foot over the edge of a mat, and the angled view of that."The painting is being exhibited at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters' Exhibition at The Mall Galleries, The Mall, London..