Knowra Deprescribing Deprescribing Deprescribing is the supervised reduction of a medicine’s dose or its discontinuation when potential harms outweigh expected benefits. It includes monitoring for withdrawal effects and changes in the condition being treated.
Medication review : A structured assessment of a person’s medicines, their purposes, effects, and safety. Deprescribing begins by identifying medicines whose current benefits or indications are uncertain.
Polypharmacy : The concurrent use of multiple medicines, often defined by a numerical threshold such as five or more. Taking many medicines increases opportunities to identify treatments with limited benefit or excess risk.
Medication adherence : The extent to which a person’s medicine-taking behavior matches an agreed treatment plan. Deprescribing is a planned clinical change, unlike unintentional deviation from a prescribed regimen.
Adverse drug reaction : A harmful, unintended response to a medicine taken at a normally used dose. Reducing a medicine can prevent or lessen harms that motivate deprescribing.
Deprescribing trial : A clinical study testing a planned reduction or discontinuation of one or more medicines. Trials assess whether medication reduction improves outcomes without unacceptable symptom recurrence or harm.
Shared decision-making : A clinical approach in which patients and professionals make decisions together using evidence and patient preferences. Patients’ priorities and concerns shape which medicines to reduce and how.
Potentially inappropriate medication : A medicine whose potential risks may outweigh its benefits for a particular patient or clinical situation. These medicines are frequent candidates for supervised reduction or discontinuation.
Medication discontinuation : The stopping of a medicine, whether planned or unplanned and with or without clinical supervision. Deprescribing is a supervised, benefit-and-harm-based form of medication discontinuation.
Prescribing cascade : A sequence in which a medicine’s adverse effect is mistaken for a new condition and treated with another medicine. Stopping the original cause can sometimes prevent further medicines from being added.
Patient-centered outcomes : Health outcomes that reflect patients’ experiences, priorities, and quality of life. Medicine counts alone cannot show whether deprescribing improves what matters to patients.
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