Evolution of Psychotropic Drug Use in Elderly Patients: Pharmaceuticals Emerging as Environmental Contaminants

Abstract

The use of drugs in the general population and especially in the elderly has dramatically increased over the last decades, with older people aged 65 consuming about four times as many drugs as the rest of the population. Psychotropic drugs prescription in particular is becoming a major public health issue as its use is steadily increasing. After their use, drugs are excreted in their original form or as metabolites and enter aquatic systems via different ways. Although there is some information about the environmental impact of certain drugs, knowledge about what happens with the vast majority of them is simply lacking.

Keywords: Drug Utilization, Drug Utilization Review, Antidepressant, Antipsychotic, Anxiolytic, Hypnotic, Benzodiazepine, Hip Fracture, Elderly, Disease Mongering, Drug Industry, Water Pollution, Pharmaceutical Database, Defined Daily Dose, Ecotoxicology, Water Pollutants, Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions, Sewage/Analysis, Humans.