[Drug safety: challenge in an aging society].

BACKGROUND: Within the context of the demographic change the proportion of the elderly in the overall population is steadily increasing. At the same time elderly patients are prescribed a disproportionately high number of medicines in comparison to younger patients. In the light of multimorbidity and polypharmacy which affect a relevant portion of the older population, drug safety is of particular importance. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: In recent years, the prescription of psychiatric drugs to elderly patients was repeatedly subjected to regulatory assessment and recommendations, for example the safety of antipsychotics in patients with dementia. As only limited information is often available with respect to the risks of medicines in the elderly population, additional efforts are necessary for improvement of the database. In this context, the system of spontaneous reporting, e.g. the reporting of cases of suspected adverse drug reactions to the responsible authorities, plays an important role with respect to the additional knowledge to be gathered. By reporting observed adverse drug reactions as well as by the quality of the reported information, physicians are able to significantly influence the effectiveness of this system in a positive way. OUTLOOK: As medical care for the majority of the elderly population is provided by general practitioners, adequate longitudinal studies are of special interest for investigating drug safety in the elderly. This aim is being pursued by the AgeCoDe study (German study on aging, cognition and dementia in primary care patients), a prospective, multicentre observational study, which is being carried out within the German competence network of degenerative dementia (Kompetenznetz Degenerative Demenzen).