Be careful to replace the brand name drugs or generic drugs

Although in theory the brand and generic drugs should be interchangeable, in reality there are some differences between products "brand" and equivalents that must be evaluated carefully, especially when the patients who use them are elderly. It 's true that the two types of medicines containing the same active ingredient, but you must take into account changes that occur in our bodies as we age. With the passage of time, change our functions, not only in the respiratory and cardiovascular, but especially from the point of view renal and hepatic. Consequently, as we age, so does your ability to assimilate and "dispose of" substances in drugs.

Renal function and liver 

In the elderly gradually increases the percentage of kidney failure, and he learned to be twice that of young people. An elderly patient was therefore less ability to eliminate through the kidneys, the substances in the medicines you take. The same phenomenon of deterioration happens to the liver, thus reducing the chances that a drug is metabolized in the right manner, thus increasing the risk of occurrence of side effects. One example is that of sleeping pills if an elderly patient takes a dose of sleeping pills equal to that consumed by young people, may be up to frenzy. 

Generic drugs, by law, can differ up to 20% with respect to the active substance in the medicinal product in relation to the original drug. A difference that could affect even very dangerous, especially in an elderly patient. As stated by Prof. Stefano Fumagalli, S.O.D. Cardiology and Geriatric Medicine: "By virtue of the aging process and more or less 20% cited the principle of bioequivalence we could be having the hazardous accumulation of active ingredient or paradoxically to have little concentration of the drug. The development of side effects in patients increases with increasing number of prescriptions, the elderly patient certainly has more diseases. Other important points are adherence and persistence to treatment, since often the drugs are not taken in the right way, the planned dose and time appropriate. An inappropriate use of medications may be responsible for the development of serious side effects, and death, as often happens to see in the emergency room. "