Deprescribing in nursing home residents: when less is more?

With aging, there is an increased susceptibility to morbidity, frailty, and disability, which can severely impact an individual's overall health, autonomy, and quality of life. This is particularly pertinent for nursing home residents, who typically suffer from multiple chronic conditions and require multiple medications to manage their health. This scenario often leads to polypharmacy, which is the use of five or more medications concurrently.
Polypharmacy presents a multifaceted challenge: it can be a necessary part of managing complex health conditions but can also become a source of additional health risks if the balance of benefits and harms is not carefully managed. Deprescribing, a strategy to tackle polypharmacy, involves the careful reduction or cessation of potentially harmful or no longer beneficial medications under the supervision of healthcare professionals. The goal of deprescribing is to optimize therapy and ensure that necessary treatments are not denied to older people. Little is known about deprescribing in nursing home residents, therefore this thesis is written.