Has your loved one gotten to a stage in life where she has multiple medications to manage? Perhaps she was recently diagnosed with a condition or disease that requires an additional medication or two to be added to her daily routine in order to help her stay healthy or recover from whatever she is battling. You might take one look into her medicine cabinet and wonder how in the world you can help ensure that she takes what she needs when she needs it. Personal care at home providers can help.
Common Medication Mistakes
Whether your loved one lives on her own or lives with a family member, managing multiple medications can be difficult. Some common mistakes that you want to help her avoid are:
- Missed doses
- Taking too much at one time or during one day
- Not properly storing medication
- Taking medication at the wrong time of the day
- Not following dosing instructions (such as taking one medication on an empty stomach and another on a full stomach)
Tips for Better Medication Management at Home
There are steps you can help your loved one take to manage her medications and ensure that she is taking them properly, even when you’re not there, including getting assistance from a personal care at home agency.
Create a Medication Chart
Before you begin, you need to know exactly what your loved one needs to take, how she needs to take it, and when she needs to take it. As you go through each medication, also make sure that she still needs all of them.
Many elderly people hold onto old medication they don’t need anymore, which can confuse them. Personal care at home providers can find the best way for you and your loved one to record all of this information so it’s easily accessible.
Some things to include on the medication chart are:
- The medication name (both the generic and the brand name)
- Who prescribed it and for what
- Dosage amount
- How often should it be taken
- What time of day it should be taken
- What important instructions need to be followed for taking the medication.
Build Medications Into the Routine
If you can help your loved one make medication part of her daily routine, it’s less likely to be forgotten. Medicine that needs to be taken with a meal might be placed right next to the toaster where she makes her toast each morning. Medication needed at night might be lined up next to her toothbrush and washcloth.
Helping her be consistent with medication will help prevent those forgotten doses or accidentally taking double doses because she’s not sure if she took the first.
Use Pill Dispensers
Pill dispensers can be a great way to assess whether or not she took the needed medication for the day. If the dispenser is empty, she did. If it’s full, she didn’t.
Set Alarms
Place an alarm on your loved one’s smartphone for middle-of-the-day medication needs to help serve as a reminder.
Enlist Some Help From a Personal Care at Home Provider
Your loved one may need someone to help refill her medication dispensers each week, stay on top of refills, and keep her medication stored properly. A personal care at home provider can help her stay on top of her medications and monitor her supply.
Personal care at home providers can also assist in helping her order new medications when needed or bring her to the pharmacy to pick up her prescriptions.
If you or an aging loved one are considering hiring Personal Care at Home in Suisun City, CA, contact the friendly staff at Home Care Professionals today.
Call (866)-940-4855
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