How to Screen for Medication Problems in the Elderly

The elderly take more medications than any other segment of the population. Seniors are prone to compliance problems often due to their social, financial and physiological circumstances. By screening for medication problems, loved ones can help the elderly improve their medication use and ultimately their health.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Assess compliance. Compare the number of pills in medication bottles to the number that should be present. Check refill dates on medication labels. Ask the elderly to describe how they take their medications, including how much and how often. If you detect compliance problems, ask questions to identify the cause.
2. Test ability of the elderly to open medication bottles. Many elderly people cannot open child resistant containers. This reduces compliance. Ask the pharmacist for easy open medication bottle caps when prescriptions are filled or refilled.
3. Determine whether the elderly can distinguish medications. When different medications look similar, it contributes to confusion and compliance problems. Because there are multiple manufacturers, pharmacists can help ensure that medications are not all the same size, shape and color.
4. Consider alternate dosage forms to improve compliance. When swallowing pills becomes difficult for the elderly, physicians can prescribe some medications as suppositories, patches, liquids and other dosage forms. Pharmacists can compound many medications into dosage forms that are not commercially available.
5. Find out if the dosing schedule is practical. Compliance is improved when dosing times are limited and tied to routine events such as waking, mealtimes and bedtime. Physicians and pharmacists can assist in identifying medications available in once per day and other reduced frequency dosages.
6. Screen for multiple physicians and pharmacies. When the elderly visit more than one physician, it can result in duplicate medications. Pharmacists can accurately check for this and other medication problems only if all prescriptions are filled at the same pharmacy.

Tips & Warnings

• Ask the pharmacist to print prescription labels in a large sized font.
• Use medication compliance aids such as pill organizers and pill timers.