UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Medications are a fact of life for older people. For nearly a decade, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Beers Criteria has sought to make sure they are appropriate, too.
On Jan. 31, the AGS unveiled the third update to the AGS Beers Criteria, one of the most frequently cited reference tools in the geriatrics field. Donna Fick, Elouise Ross Eberly Professor of Nursing and director of the Center of Geriatric Nursing Excellence at Penn State, co-chaired a panel of interdisciplinary experts convened to update and expand criteria for medications to potentially avoid or consider with caution because they often present an unfavorable balance of benefits and harms for older persons.
“Medications play an important role in health and well-being,” Fick said. She noted that the National Center for Health Statistics found that more than 90 percent of older people use at least one prescription and more than 66 percent use three or more in any given month. “We hope the latest information on what makes medications appropriate can play an equally important role in decisions about treatment options that are safe as well as effective.”
The AGS Beers Criteria includes lists of certain medications worth discussing with health professionals because they may not be the safest or best options for older adults. The panel Fick co-chaired identified more than 40 potentially problematic medications and classes of medications, and organized them into five lists according to factors such as specific medical conditions and potentially harmful interactions. The experts reviewed more than 1,400 clinical trials and research studies published since the last update in 2015.
“The AGS Beers Criteria aims to guide older people and health professionals away from potentially harmful treatments while helping us assess quality of care,” said one of Fick’s co-chairs, Todd Semla, a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
First developed by Mark Beers, M.D., in 1991 and transitioned to the AGS in 2011, these lists of potentially inappropriate medications have been staples of care for nearly three decades. The entire 2019 AGS Beers Criteria has been published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.15767) and is available as a pocket card for clinicians.
To aid clinicians in determining how the criteria should be applied, Fick and a third co-chair, Michael A. Steinman, M.D., published a companion editorial jointly in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and the Journal of Gerontological Nursing.
Fick’s research focuses on topics related to health care of the elderly, including delirium in persons with dementia. She has served as editor of the Journal of Gerontological Nursing since 2011, and is a Fellow of both the Gerontological Society of America and the American Academy of Nursing.