Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Polymedication is particularly common among elderly diabetes patients because of the frequency of co-morbidities, of certain chronic diseases and disabilities, of the growing demand for care, therapeutic progress, but also of some of the excess of requirements. The objective of our study is to assess the frequency of comorbidities in a population of elderly diabetic type 2, analyze the drug consumption.

Methods: It is a descriptive study conducted in 300 diabetics type 2, over 65 years of age, followed in our unit, during the period between April 2016 and October 2017.

Results: The average age of our patients was 71±6.5 years with extremes of 65 to 92 years. Women represent 59% of our sample. Diabetes was unbalanced in 44.3% of patients with a duration of diabetes mellitus exceeding 5 years in 70% of patients. All of the subjects of our study have had degenerative complications like types of microangiopathies: retinopathy (31%), neuropathy (50.3%) and nephropathy (40%) or types of macroangiopathies (48.6%). Our results showed that 81% of patients suffer from between 2 and 5 chronic pathologies including dyslipidemia (50.3%) and hypertension (63.6%). Other co-morbidities were found in our population: 13.4% had mobility deficits and were totally dependent, depression in 2.6%, dental disorders among 58.3% as well as swallowing disorders among 7.6% and nutrition problems (assessed by MNA test) at 14.3%. The number of drugs prescribed (all galenic forms combined) exceeded three a day among 56.4% of our patients.

Discussion: Poly-medication is common among the elderly diabetic subject due to the association to other chronic diseases or the presence of complications. The high risk of adverse effects in this fragile population, as well as the frequency of mnestic disorders related to the age and the vascular troubles requires a good coordination between the different prescribers in order to avoid the abuse of prescription and to ensure the good therapeutic education of patients and their entourage.