Realigning diabetes regimens in older adults: a 4S Pathway to guide simplification and deprescribing strategies
Treating older people with diabetes is challenging due to multiple medical comorbidities that might interfere with patients’ ability to perform self-care. Most diabetes guidelines focus on improving glycaemia through addition of medications, but few address strategies to reduce medication burden for older adults—a concept known as deprescribing. Strategies for deprescribing might include stopping high-risk medications, decreasing the dose, or substituting for less harmful agents. Accordingly, glycaemic management strategies for older adults with type 1 and type 2 diabetes not responding to their current regimen require an understanding of how and when to realign therapy to meet patient’s current needs, which represents a major clinical practice gap.
