A new report has revealed that most of the Canadian seniors are currently taking various types of medicines and in a few cases, the intake is fairly substantial.

The study, released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information on Thursday, shared that a little under two-thirds of the Canadian population aged 65 and above is presently taking 5 or more prescription drugs on a regular basis. Also, 20% of the people in the 65 and above age group are on 10 or more medicines, while 6% of then are actually taking a minimum of 15 prescription drugs.

"With the aging of Canada's population, it is important to understand which drugs are being used most often by seniors and which account for the highest proportions of public drug program expenditure," said Jean-Marie Berthelot, Vice-President of programs for the group.

The study thoroughly analyzed use of prescription drugs among over a million seniors currently covered by public drug programs, across 6 provinces from 2002 to 2008.

The most commonly and widely used drugs were the ones prescribed for treatment of chronic conditions.

"I think in general older people tend to take probably about three times as many medications as younger people do" said Dr. Paula Rochon, stressing that this was probably because the elderly tend to live with more chronic conditions.