Deprescribing medications

Leanne Te Karu talks with us about deprescribing medications. Leanne is a prescribing pharmacist with over 25 years experience across a wide range of settings. She has worked for the quality safety commission and also BPAC. Leanne was a founding member of the Māori pharmacists association and was the inaugural recipient of clinical pharmacist of the year award. Within the general practice environment she aims to optimise safe prescribing while decreasing mortality.

Case

A 76 year old Māori female. She has a past medical history of hypertension, depression, hyperlipidemia, osteoporosis and gout which is currently in remission.

She is taking multiple medications including an ACE inhibitor, a beta-blocker a statin, benzodiazepine and an SSRI. She was also on a bisphosphonate. Periodically she takes a PPI and a Non-steroidal.

Recently she has had falls. She appears to be frail. She presents with her family asking if she can stop some of these medications.