1: Lancet. 2007 Jul 14;370(9582):173-84. Appropriate prescribing in elderly people: how well can it be measured and optimised? Spinewine A, Schmader KE, Barber N, Hughes C, Lapane KL, Swine C, Hanlon JT. Center for Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium. anne.spinewine@facm.ucl.ac.be Prescription of medicines is a fundamental component of the care of elderly people, and optimisation of drug prescribing for this group of patients has become an important public-health issue worldwide. Several characteristics of ageing and geriatric medicine affect medication prescribing for elderly people and render the selection of appropriate pharmacotherapy a challenging and complex process. In the first paper in this series we aim to define and categorise appropriate prescribing in elderly people, critically review the instruments that are available to measure it and discuss their predictive validity, critically review recent randomised controlled intervention studies that assessed the effect of optimisation strategies on the appropriateness of prescribing in elderly people, and suggest directions for future research and practice. Publication Types: Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S. PMID: 17630041 [PubMed - in process] Related Links Home-based medication review in a high risk elderly population in primary care--the POLYMED randomised controlled trial. [Age Ageing. 2007] PMID:17387123 Appropriateness of medication prescribing in ambulatory elderly patients. [J Am Geriatr Soc. 1994] PMID:7983285 A summated score for the medication appropriateness index: development and assessment of clinimetric properties including content validity. [J Clin Epidemiol. 1994] PMID:7730892 Improving prescribing patterns for the elderly through an online drug utilization review intervention: a system linking the physician, pharmacist, and computer. [JAMA. 1998] PMID:9786375 Measuring the appropriateness of prescribing in primary care: are current measures complete? [J Clin Pharm Ther. 2005] PMID:16336285