The nation’s elderly patients last year used a total of 6.2 billion dosages of various oral medications and each was estimated to have consumed more than 2,000 pills, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics.
On average, an elderly patient sees a doctor 26.46 times a year, National Health Insurance Administration data showed.
The most common disease or condition among elderly patients was acute respiratory infection, followed by high blood pressure and diabetes, administration data showed.
Elderly patients last year spent NT$69.3 billion (US$2.32 billion) on medicine, 40.7 percent of the entire nation’s bill for medicine, with half being medicine for cardiovascular diseases, data showed.
Elderly patients tend to take more medicine because they often have multiple conditions, Taipei Veterans General Hospital Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology director Chen Liang-kung (陳亮恭) said.
Unlike younger patients, elderly patients have to take medicine for almost every one of their health conditions, he said.
Because hospital departments are divided into smaller units with smaller areas of expertise, elderly patient often have to consult more then one doctor, he said.
For example, when an elderly patient develops a headache from taking a certain type of medicine, they might have to see a different doctor who specializes in that field, he said, adding that this would increase the amount of medicine a patient is taking.
Many elderly patients taking Western medicine experience anti-cholinergic effects, he said.
The symptoms include a dry mouth, diminished bowel movement, inability to concentrate and poor coordination, which could lead to falls and injuries, he added.
Long-term use of Western medicine can also increase the risk of dementia in elderly patients, he said.
Elderly patients need a different set of standards for symptom control, Chen said, urging the government to promote integration of hospital departments to provide better medical care for elderly patients and to increase the budget for non-drug treatments, such as nutrient therapy and muscle coordination training.
Research has found that 90 percent of elderly people take at least five different types of medicine, with one-third of them having to do so over the course of six months, National Taiwan University Hospital Jhudong Branch head Chan Ding-cheng (詹鼎正) said.
People in their 60s typically have two diseases or conditions, while those in their 70s usually have three and those in their 80s four, Taichung Hospital chair professor Lee Meng-chih (李孟智) said.
In most cases, multiple diseases or conditions develop because one of them has not been properly treated in the first place, Lee said.
For example, diabetes that has not been properly treated can lead to a hardening of the arteries, which can then cause cardiovascular disease or even kidney failure, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching