Uso de benzodiazepínicos em idosos: uma revisão integrativa.

Abstract

The elderly population was one of the population classes that grew the most in Brazil in the last 10 years. As a result, according to WHO estimates, by 2025, Brazil will be the sixth country in the world in terms of the number of elderly people. Concurrently with this growth, there was a high prevalence of mental illnesses and, consequently, an increase in the consumption of psychotropic drugs, among them the use of benzodiazepines. These drugs are the most widely prescribed and widely used worldwide to combat insomnia and anxiety, especially in the elderly. Thus, it becomes quite relevant to study more about this subject, especially in the elderly. The aim of the study is to review the use of benzodiazepines in the elderly, analyzing their effects and what the risks are due to their prolonged use. It is an integrative review of the literature, for its realization and elaboration, articles were used, being these, read, interpreted and analyzed. Their respective references were obtained from the electronic databases: Scielo, Virtual Health Library (VHL), ScholarGoogle, CAPES journals, Medline / PubMed, where the following descriptors were used: "benzodiazepines", "anxiolytics", " , "Anxiety", "old age", as well as their combinations and their respective terms in english for international articles search, following as inclusion criteria, articles published in national and international journals published in periodicals in ten years (2007-2017), prioritizing the most recent ones. The use of benzodiazepines by the elderly has generated a series of discursions, several studies carried out in recent years, report that elderly women are the ones who consume this type of medication more and that their prolonged use, exceeding periods of 4 to 6 weeks, causes Phenomena of tolerance and dependence, especially in the elderly. Analyzing the articles, it is possible to conclude that the importance of the pharmaceutical professional in guiding the rational use of the benzodiazepines is essential to try to minimize the risks caused by the indiscriminate and abusive use of these drugs.