It’s Talk About Your Medicines Month!
In our post on Breast Cancer Awareness Month we talked about the dizzying array of medications that can make organizing cancer care for the elderly a cause of anxiety not just for patients, but for their family caregivers as well.
It’s not just cancer that can clutter your older loved one’s counter — and your mind — with prescription and over-the-counter (OTC) medications and worries about side effects and drug interactions. Did you know that people 65+ are 12% of the U.S. population, but account for 34% of prescription medication use and 30% of OTC use, with most older adults taking 3+ medications per day?
That’s a lot of pills to track, even without cancer. So we’re going to spend the rest of this month talking about Talk About Your Medicines Month!
The theme of this year’s celebration is “Medication Safety & Aging,” and the goal of the month is to encourage older patients and their caregivers to stay safe when it comes to medications by taking control of their own medication management. We all know that immediately after receiving a diagnosis, the last thing you’re likely to do is pull out a notebook and write down the nitty-gritty of any prescribed medications. And that’s fine — you had other things on your mind. But let’s take this month to rectify that situation.
Head over to your medicine cabinet, drawer or counter space now and create a checklist of all the medicines you take (even the OTC ones), and help your older loved ones do the same. Arrange time to review your lists with your medical teams and pharmacists, discussing the purpose of each medication, the recommended dosage, potential side effects, interactions, other medical conditions, and any other issues you can think of — including personal issues that your medical team might be unaware of, like difficulty swallowing large pills or a distaste for a particular flavor.
And please take notes.
Even if you don’t discover potential health hazards or drug interactions (and we hope you don’t) it has been shown that patients who understand their medications are more likely to take them properly.
Here’s a tip while you’re organizing your pill cabinet: National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is coming up on October 29, 2022. If during your medication management search you uncover expired or no-long-needed drugs, pack them up and click on the DEA Take Back Day Information Page link below to find the nearest safe drop-off site. If you aren’t free on October 29, no worries — just scroll way down the information page to the Year-Round Drug Disposal link to find a year-round collection site near you.
And here’s our final tip if you are concerned that your older loved ones may have lost control of their prescription schedules, expiration dates and snowballing pill bottle collections: give Overture Home Care a call. Contact us 24/7 at (817) 887-9401 and ask about our medication management services. We can help you bring order (and safety) to the chaos!
LINKS:
BeMedWise Talk About Your Medicines Information Page https://www.bemedwise.org/talk-about-your-medicines-month/
U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Medicines and You: A Guide for Older Adults https://www.fda.gov/drugs/resources-you-drugs/medicines-and-you-guide-older-adults
DEA National Prescription Drug Take Back Day Information Page https://www.dea.gov/takebackday