Market scope note: This article covers data from both Korea and the United States. Each piece of information is labeled 🇰🇷 Korea or 🇺🇸 U.S. in the text to indicate which country it applies to.
Open the drawer in an elderly parent's home and you'll often find it stuffed with pill packets. Blood pressure medication, diabetes medication, stomach medication, sleeping pills, pain relievers — each prescribed to treat a separate condition. Yet when all of these meet inside the body at once, they can create an entirely different set of problems. Managing medications is not simply a matter of making sure a parent takes their pills on time. Regularly checking which medications are being taken and in what amounts, whether any of them interact with one another, and whether any are no longer needed — that is the caregiver's true role.
🇰🇷 Korea According to data from the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (건강보험심사평가원), approximately 46.6% of adults aged 65 and older are prescribed five or more medications, and among those aged 75 and older the figure rises to 70.2% — far exceeding the OECD seven-country average of 48.3% and the highest among those countries. 🇰🇷 Korea The proportion of older adults prescribed ten or more medications simultaneously has also been rising steadily, from 13.9% in 2021 to 17.6% in 2024. 🇺🇸 U.S. In the United States as well, the rate of polypharmacy among adults aged 65 and older climbed from 47.7% in 2021 to 58.4% in 2025. Both countries are moving in the same direction.
Why does taking more medications become dangerous? 🇰🇷 Korea An analysis by the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service found that when older adults take multiple medications together for 180 days or more, their risk of hospitalization is 1.85 times higher, their risk of emergency room visits is 1.92 times higher, and their risk of death is 2.57 times higher compared with those who do not. 🇰🇷 Korea Research also shows that taking four medications simultaneously raises the risk of side effects by 38%, and taking seven raises it by 82%. Because the liver and kidneys in older adults have a diminished capacity to metabolize drugs, the same medication stays in the body longer, making side effects such as cognitive decline, delirium, and urinary dysfunction more likely to appear. Drug interactions — where one medication blocks another, or conversely amplifies its effect to an excessive degree — cannot be overlooked either.
Duplicate prescriptions are also a real concern. 🇰🇷 Korea A research team at Gangdong Kyung Hee University Hospital (강동경희대학교병원) analyzed 40 elderly patients who had been discharged from the hospital and found drug interactions in 80% of them — 32 patients — and inappropriate drug prescriptions for older adults in 85%. Duplicate prescriptions appeared most frequently among gastrointestinal medications. For older adults who move between multiple hospitals and clinics, situations arise where each physician issues a new prescription without fully knowing what has been prescribed elsewhere. The most reliable way to break this cycle is for caregivers to stay one step ahead: compile a complete medication list and bring it out in the examination room.
Medication adherence — whether a patient actually takes medications as prescribed — also deserves attention. Multiple studies report that treatment adherence among older adults taking multiple medications hovers at around 64%. The most common reasons are simply forgetting to take a dose, or stopping a medication on one's own when a side effect is suspected. 🇰🇷 Korea In the 2023 Korea Health Panel Survey (한국의료패널조사), 73% of adults aged 75 and older who had experienced a drug side effect returned to an outpatient clinic, a figure far higher than the 37.2% seen among adults aged 19 to 64. As many as 20% of cases involved quietly managing the side effect alone or taking no action at all. This is why it matters for caregivers to carefully observe changes in symptoms and proactively communicate them to healthcare providers.
Both countries have official programs in place to address this issue. 🇰🇷 Korea The National Health Insurance Service's (국민건강보험공단) Polypharmacy Management Program (다제약물 관리사업) is a service in which physicians and pharmacists visit patients at home or conduct outpatient or telephone consultations to review the full list of medications being taken and, when necessary, facilitate prescription adjustments. Adults aged 65 and older who have a chronic condition and regularly take ten or more medications are eligible to apply; those taking five or more medications that include high-risk drugs are also eligible. Beginning in April 2025, the service was extended to cover residents of certain long-term care facilities. However, as of 2025, only 11,613 people out of 1.44 million total polypharmacy users actually received the service — just 0.8% of the total. This means that even when a program exists, those who do not apply first are unlikely to benefit. 🇺🇸 U.S. In the United States, older adults with multiple chronic conditions can receive a pharmacist-led comprehensive medication review through Medicare Part D's Medication Therapy Management (MTM) program. CMS continues to adjust eligibility criteria — adding HIV/AIDS to the list of core chronic conditions in 2025, among other updates — and all Part D plan enrollees are required to have an MTM program included in their plan.
There are three things caregivers can do right now. First, create a consolidated medication list. Include prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, and health supplements — write the name of each drug, the dosage, and the time it is taken on a single sheet of paper, and bring it to every medical appointment. Second, ask a physician or pharmacist to check for overlap among prescriptions received from multiple healthcare providers. Third, when a new symptom appears, before attributing it to old age, consider first whether it could be a side effect of a current medication. If memory suddenly seems hazier, balance worsens, or digestion becomes difficult, it is worth asking whether any medication was recently added.
Sources: Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service, "2024 Healthcare Quality Statistics"; National Health Insurance Service Polypharmacy Management Program guidance and parliamentary audit press materials (SR Times, 2026); Gangdong Kyung Hee University Hospital, "Analysis and Evaluation of Polypharmacy and Inappropriate Drug Use in Elderly Patients" (Yaksa Gongnon, 2026); Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, "Supporting Medication Use Among Older Adults in Response to a Super-Aged Society" (2024); Comedicom and Kookmin Ilbo reporting on polypharmacy (2024–2025); Trillian Health, "Polypharmacy Rates Continue to Rise Across All Age Groups" (2025); CMS Medicare Part D Medication Therapy Management Program official guidance; Healtharc, "MTM in 2025: Latest Updates."
Note: This article was compiled by AI from the sources cited above. We strive for accuracy, but for decisions about your specific situation, please confirm the latest guidance from a professional or the relevant agency.