Polypharmacy and cognition in older women: less is more?

Abstract

At present, two-thirds of all community-dwelling adults develop multiple non-communicable diseases in their lifetime, with women at nearly double the risk of multimorbidity involving psychiatric conditions than men. This high burden of somatic-psychiatric multimorbidity among women necessitates frequent and simultaneous use of drugs according to various disease-specific guidelines. This do not necessarily imply overtreatment as co-occurring diseases may warrant treatment by multiple drugs, yet when inappropriate, polypharmacy turns to be particularly detrimental to cognitive health among older women.