Optimising medication use and medication management in older people with cognitive impairment

Older people, particularly those with memory impairment, commonly use multiple long-term medications and are at increased risk of medication-related problems (e.g. medication-taking errors, non-adherence) and adverse events (e.g. side effects, medication-related hospitalisation and death). This thesis identifies that there is a lack of high-quality research regarding the most effective methods for improving how older people take their medication. It reports a high prevalence of potentially inappropriate and unnecessary medication use among people attending memory clinics, and it finds that adding a pharmacist into a memory clinic team is feasible and may help improve medication use.