In the quiet accumulation of prescriptions, a pattern emerges that medicine has long struggled to name: one drug produces a side effect, the side effect is mistaken for a new illness, and another drug arrives to treat what was never truly there. Researchers in Ontario have now mapped 24 of these cascades with precision, revealing how older adults — women especially — bear the weight of a system that sees each symptom in isolation rather than as part of a connected story. The remedy, it turns out, is not a new drug but an older discipline: the willingness to trace each prescription back to its
Study reveals common medications trigger harmful prescribing cascades in older adults
Older adults, particularly women with multiple chronic conditions, experience preventable adverse drug events and unnecessary medication exposure from prescribing cascades.