Irrational drug use, a major problem in health care, can be resolved by implementing the concept of evidence-based medicine, rational prescription of drugs and ensuring good prescribing practices. The elderly population, being the high drug-consuming age group, needs special attention in their drug intake and drug effects encountered. Geriatric pharmacology promotes rational prescribing through a combined approach of considering the patients’ health status, drugs prescribed, and appropriateness of drugs among the elderly patients. The change in body parameters in the elderly population results in altered pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics and a detailed knowledge about the changes will help individualizing the drug therapy. An age-related decline in the physiological function, high prevalence of comorbidities along with polypharmacy can lead to adverse drug reactions and drug interactions. The appropriateness of the drugs prescribed for the elderly population can be evaluated using explicit and implicit methods. American Beers criteria is one of the most commonly accepted explicit tools and it summarizes the list of inappropriate medications in the elderly, drugs to be used with caution in the elderly, drugs to be avoided in the elderly, and clinically important drug-drug interactions. The review focuses on the points to be considered on various aspects while prescribing to an elderly patient.