Adverse drug events in the elderly population admitted to a tertiary care hospital.

Older adults take almost one-third of the drugs prescribed today yet represent only about 12 percent of the population. Adverse drug events are common in this population, but often these events appear to be preventable. Interest in adverse events related to the use of prescription drugs has rarely been higher or broader. The research community continues to develop new tools to study adverse effects of drugs in individuals and populations. However, the published literature on drug-related adverse events is fraught with problems, starting with the original reports and extending to systematic reviews. Prospective data are missing, adverse drug events are poorly described, and analytical methods are questionable. This leads to problems with imprecise estimates and generalizability of results.