The FORTA (Fit fOR The Aged) App as a Clinical Tool to Optimize Complex Medications in Older People

Older people are the main recipients of medications in many regions of the world, and their population is rapidly growing. Numerous studies have shown that drug treatment is frequently inappropriate in this age group, and adverse drugs reactions pose an essential threat to them. Major reasons are the lack of evidence for most medications and the presence of multimorbidity resulting in polypharmacy.1 Unfortunately, pure negative lists (eg, the US Beers list) were clinically largely ineffective2 to address this problem; the FORTA classification (A: Absolutely; B: Beneficial; C: Careful; D: Don't) was developed as an implicit tool representing the first positive/negative drug assessment regarding age appropriateness of drugs.

Source: Journal of the American Medical Directors Association - August 2, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Farhad Pazan, Martin Wehling Tags: Letter to the Editor Source Type: research