Research projects to focus on elderly patients receiving medical treatment

20.05.2020 l Latest news

The use of medication by the elderly is associated with a wide range of risks. With funding from VELUX FONDEN, three research projects will focus on how serious errors in the use of medication for elderly patients can be minimised.

The medical treatment of elderly patients is associated with many risks. Elderly patients, for example, often suffer from several diseases, and consequently are being treated with several different types of medicine. Together, the different medications can constitute a dangerous cocktail, and one to which the elderly patient may be particularly susceptible.

The grantee projects will focus on the problems associated with polypharmacy – treatment with five or more types of medication at the same time.

The three projects:

VELUX FONDEN will continue to focus on research into the use of medicines by the elderly to generate knowledge-based solutions for the safer and the more considerate use of medical treatment.

Stay up to date on new measures within the field on the page for Aging research and on the Foundations’ LinkedIn and Facebook.

User involvement a priority

One criterion for awarding grants to projects has been that practitioners and municipalities take part in the project, and that either patients or caregivers are actively involved in all parts of the research process. According to Lise Bonnevie, programme manager at VELUX FONDEN, user involvement strengthens the individual projects:

“User involvement is part of the requirement for grants, as it results in more sustainable and relevant projects that increase the level of knowledge for both researchers and patients.” 

Anne Estrup Olesen is a senior researcher at Aalborg University’s Clinical Pharmacology Unit. For her project, Patient safety incidents in the primary care sector – can we do better?, user involvement plays a crucial role:

“It is key to improving health care that ideas are developed and tested by the employees who treat and care for citizens, and that the citizens themselves and their caregivers are also involved. It ensures that the projects can be completed and incorporated into daily routines.”

Also, for Christian Backer Mogensen, professor of emergency medicine and project manager on the project Developing solutions for optimising medicine use in elderly patients after discharge, user involvement is an important factor:

“When patients are hospitalised urgently, their medication is often adjusted, and the patient is discharged quickly from the hospital again. Therefore, we want to develop a solution that helps both the hospital, the patient and the patient’s GP to ensure that the patient receives the right medication at the right time. With the grant from VELUX FONDEN, we can bring together patients, caregivers, doctors, pharmacists and home-helpers to develop a solution that works, even when everyone is busy.”

Since the first grant was made to support research into the elderly and medication in June 2017, almost DKK 18.2 million has been granted for a total of 12 research projects.

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