[Palliative care for elderly patients living in rented housing by pharmacists].

Yanase Pharmacy Co., Ltd. actively provides home health care intervention. The present study examined the effects of drug management guidance provided as home-visit-based health care support for elderly patients living in rented housing. The subjects were 117 patients who moved into rented accommodation for the elderly between June 2009 and February 2012, and who received drug administration guidance. The majority of the subjects had intractable diseases: 74(63%)were terminally ill with cancer, 7(6%)had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and 2(2%)had muscular dystrophy. Home-visit-based support included accompanying physicians' visits, formulation support, participation in the conference, and the provision of drug information for home-visiting nurses. The following formulation support measures were used: reducing intravenous infusion was proposed to address terminally ill cancer patients with a large amount of sputum; advice was provided on the selection of opioids for patients with renal failure; and drug options were discussed to alleviate the symptoms of gastrointestinal obstruction. All of these measures effectively alleviated symptoms.