Reducing medications safely to meet life’s changes
What medications were good then might not be the best choice now. Deprescribing is the planned process of reducing or stopping medications that may no longer be of benefit or may be causing harm. The goal is to reduce medication burden or harm while improving quality of life.
Be part of the change for a better quality of life
Patients
Learn about deprescribing, check out resources to help you discuss deprescribing or join the conversation about how you can get involved in research.
Health Care Providers
Get comfortable deprescribing with tools and resources, find out about the Canadian Deprescribing Network or join the conversation about research.
Researchers
Find out about ongoing research at Bruyère Research Institute and the University of Montreal and join the conversation to share your own research.
As the population ages, older Canadians are living with multiple chronic conditions. In 2012, 66% of community seniors had claims for 5 or more drug classes.
Canadian Institute for Health Information. Drug use among seniors on public drug programs, 2012. Ottawa, Ontario. May 2014.Inappropriate prescriptions are known to pose health risks for older adults, leading to unnecessary hospitalisations and undue cost.
Budnitz DS, Lovegrove MC, Shehab N, Richards CL. Emergency hospitalizations for adverse drug events in older Americans. The New England Journal of Medicine. 2011;365(21):2002-12“It is an art of no little importance to administer medicines properly; but it is an art of much greater and more difficult acquisition to know when to suspend or altogether omit them.”
Philippe Pinel 1745-1826What’s happening?
New website promotes tackling insomnia without use of medication
A website created by a Nova Scotia pharmacist aims to help Canadians wean themselves off sleeping pills by teaching them how to treat insomnia without drugs. David Gardner talks about said the side effects associated with sleeping pills that are costing the healthcare...
A Multi-Method Approach to Exploring Prescribing Cascades
Prescribing cascades occur when the side effect from a drug is thought to be a symptom of a new condition, which results in starting a second drug to “treat” the side effect. How and why prescribing cascades start and continue, their impact on patients, and/or how...
Deprescribing Initiatives using Community Engagement (DICE)
The Deprescribing Initiatives Using Community Engagement (DICE) project explores how public and health care professional community engagement strategies can be used to implement deprescribing into the routine care of patients in a community within the Champlain Local...
Keep up with the latest
A recent study explored the value of educational interventions in #deprescribing, finding that 43% of patients who… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Congrats Dee on this important publication! #deprescribing twitter.com/deemangin/stat…
Awesome poster Andrew! #NAPCRG2018 https://t.co/hFqkt6bipD
#Deprescribing pilot program in a Canadian hospital used multidisciplinary reviews to stop 46 medications in the dr… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Lots of community engagement advice from #NACPRG2018 attendees - thank-you from Bruyere #deprescribing team! https://t.co/rICS6DMnGG
“There’s no question that residents are more complex than a decade ago, but do they truly need so many medications?… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Want to get involved?
Whether you're a health care professional, researcher, or member of the public, there are many ways to join the deprescribing conversation.
Need more information?
We're here to help. If you need more information than what you can find on this website, please get in touch.