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The average older adult in the United States takes five prescription drugs per day. Half of these drugs contain a sedative. Alcohol should therefore be avoided by most senior citizens because of the dangerous interactions between alcohol and sedatives.
People about to have surgery must tell their health care providers about all supplements they take.
Patients who have been on total parenteral nutrition for more than a few days may need to have foods gradually reintroduced to give the digestive tract time to start working again.
On average, someone in the United States has a stroke about every 40 seconds. This is about 795,000 people per year.
More than 34,000 trademarked medication names and more than 10,000 generic medication names are in use in the United States.