Medication Use in the Elderly

A nice review in JAMA here.  The author touches on what I believe to be a key point -- the use of medications designed to reduce long term mortality in patients with a limited life expectancy.  


"for patients with advanced dementia, poor prognosis, or both, consensus panels do not recommend (and in some cases advocate against) medications such as statins,bisphosphonates, and cholinesterase inhibitors, although these positions are not universally endorsed."  


I must say, in the era of escalating health care costs, partially driven by medication costs -- thinking about the above statement seems to be reasonable from a policy-making point of view.