Does your aging parent take the rainbow approach to managing medications?
You know — a pink one after breakfast, two yellows and a green at lunch, followed by two blues at bed time? Using color and shape to distinguish one medication from another is a surprisingly common short-hand practiced by many older adults. Heck, it may even work just fine if a person only takes one or two pills each day.
But your mother is probably taking more than two pills per day. In fact, using data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and AARP, there’s a 50/50 chance that your mother or father is taking six prescription medications a day and maybe more. More pills means a greater likelihood of confusion when it comes to when and how to take them. Especially when the pills or the prescriptions change…
Why organizing medications by color and pill shape isn’t a good idea
I can all but promise you that one day soon your mother will twist the white cap on the orange refill vial and discover that her little pink “after breakfast” pill is no longer little…or pink! Why? Because the manufacturer has changed or the medication is dispensed in generic form. Maybe her doctor decided to increase the dose at her last check-up or hospitalization, etc., etc., etc.
So the morning pill is now neon green, but that’s not all! You know those two blue pills your mother takes at bedtime? Yeah, they’re now orange and she is supposed to take them midday instead of at night…along with a brand new purple pill.
Think this is crazy-making? Oh, it is! And without a more dependable system, your sweet little mother is now at risk of taking her medications incorrectly which can cause harm.
So what’s the fix here? Ah, I’m so glad you asked! 
Three ways to manage medications
1. Use a handy-dandy paper medication management tool
There are several out there, but the one I like best is: United Hospital Fund’s Next Step in Care Medication Management Form for Family Caregivers - available in English, Spanish, Chinese & Russian. Print a blank version or make changes to the form directly on your computer. BUT, whatever you do, be sure to update the form each time a medication is added, removed or changed.
And, if at all possible, help your aging parent to get into the habit of taking the form with them to doctors’ appointments or to any other setting where care is provided including the emergency room. This will ensure that all health care providers stay on the same page (literally!) when it comes to medications.
2. Talk to the nice pharmacist about getting prescriptions filled in blister packs
Never heard of a blister pack? Oh that’s the name given to those little plastic bubbles that are used mostly to package over-the-counter medications that come in flat boxes. However, if you request it, many pharmacists will group all of your aging parent’s medications by the dose time and then package all the grouped pills in blister packs.
Just imagine that your mother finishes breakfast and is ready to take her morning pills. Instead of reaching for the vials, she just punctures a single blister pack! Same thing when it’s time for the midday medications. This is how nursing homes have been keeping patients’ meds straight for years, so why shouldn’t your mom benefit from the technology at home?
Wondering where to find one of these nice pharmacists?
I was too! So I made a few quick calls. As it turns out all Walmart pharmacies offer blister packs, some CVS and Rite Aid pharmacies do and all Walgreens pharmacies do not. If your aging parent uses a mom and pop pharmacy it’s worth a call to confirm, but my hunch would be that they would not have blister pack capability since the materials and equipment needed can be costly and takes up space.
Speaking of equipment being costly, this third one will have you dipping into your pocket, so be sure it’s worth it…
3. Rent a super duper medication dispenser/reminder system
The only medication dispenser/reminder system that I’m aware of is Philips Medication Dispensing Service. For around $75 a month plus the cost of set up, you can essentially rent an automatic medication dispensing system that sits on your parent’s counter top and drops a cup of pills at a set time several times per day. A flashing light and woman’s voice reminds him or her to dispense and take the medications. If no one retrieves the medications within 90 minutes or so, a family caregiver is notified by phone.
The drawbacks here are that your aging parent may actually be active (God willing!) and so may like to leave the house every now and again! If he or she is typically gone for more than a few hours, the dispensing system may not be a good option. And, the unit has to be pre-filled which means that you or someone else needs to be there to do it, at least every 40 days.
So who is option #3 good for? I’d say aging parents who are home-bound and/or have early Alzheimer’s. In these two instances the product helps to support their independence at home for as long as possible.
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So there you have it! Three ways to help mom manage her medications. Did I mention the system that has worked best for you and your aging parent? If so please let me know in the comments section below or by getting in touch!
lee December 19, 2011 at 8:05 pm
Number one problem is my Mom is always forgetting or double dosing. Last year she took three pills and ended up in the ER. I bought her a MED-Q Pillbox. It has a light that flsahes on the individual box she need to take. Ot also has a beeping alarm. She set the times she has to take her oills and it reminds her. It cost less than 40 dollars but has been PRICELESS. Google MEDQPILLBOX and watch the video
lee
Jessica Site September 27, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Hi Maria,
When Kathi Sitek was caring for her 90 year mother, she developed the Pill Pouch. The Pill Pouch is a medication management visual aid. It has helped Kathi’s mother manage her eight medications with the ease of an expert.
The Pill Pouch includes a visual representation of each pill, along with the name, dosage and usage. It provides an organized and consolidated view of an individual’s complete medication regimen.
The Pill Pouch has many functions. It can be used when setting up a weekly medication regimen. It can be used as a reference tool when taking daily medications. It can be taken to routine doctor visits and trips to the pharmacy. And it provides vital information in emergency situations.
Pill Pouch is a medication management tool useful for individuals, caregivers, and medical professionals—all of which benefit from this consolidated source of information vital to an individual’s health.
When multiple medications get mixed in a pill box, or left on a counter, the Pill Pouch is a helpful reference tool to identify which pill is which.
When medical personnel need to identify proper treatment for a patient, they can refer to the Pill Pouch and avoid prescribing medications that can react with existing prescriptions.
Managing multiple medications is complicated. Pill Pouch helps reduce confusion and thus improve health.
The Pill Pouch can be purchased at http://www.pillpouch.net for $9.99 plus shipping.
The Pill Pouch vision:
1. Build awareness of the importance of proper medication management;
2. Share how the Pill Pouch can help!
Visit our website for addition medication management resources. Let Pill Pouch help you become an expert in your own health!
Thank you for your work supporting the health of our loved ones!
Maria September 27, 2011 at 11:39 am
Hi All,
Just an update here. I recently stumbled across a low-tech pill organizer that looks like it would do the trick AND it’s compact enough to take along to the doctors’ visits. It’s called PillPouch and it was created by a family caregiver! The website did not offer the price, but I’ll ask the creator to give us some more details.
Thanks,
Maria
Maria January 10, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Thanks for your comments, Julie. I had not heard of Medfolio, but I took a look and think that the pill box you described is another excellent option for medication management. What I like most is that it’s portable and that it can be programmed again and again as things change. If you’d like to learn more, go to http://www.medfoliopillbox.com/ and watch the video about half way down the page. The unit costs $208.
Julie Fulmer-Mason, PharmD January 10, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Hi Maria,
Thank you so much for addressing this issue – sometimes I feel that I am the lone soul out there touting medication management. I am a pharmacist and have spent many years in “brown bag” medication sessions with patients of all ages. Based on my experiences with patients and their healthcare providers regarding medication non-compliance, I started a company that has developed an innovative electronic medication management device called MedFolio. Personally I feel that the basic pill box design is the most important “device” that a patient can use to manage their medications…it keeps pills in such an organized manner that the overall number of medications that a person has to take is not overwhelming. In addition to your thoughts in your posts, something else to think about from a patient’s standpoint is…say someone takes nine different medications per day….that is nine similiar-looking amber (or white) pharmacy vials that you have to look at each day. Say you have to open each bottle twice a day, that means you have to twist off the child-proof top 18 times per day, 126 times per week, and 540 times per month. Imagine if someone takes their pills 3 or 4 times per day! Based on my experience, this leads to frustration and depression with daily medication use, and I completely understand why individuals forget to take their medications or give up on them!
The product that you mentioned, Phillips Medication Dispensing Service, is definitely good for those patients that stay at home and whose kids are worried that they are not taking their medications appropriately. However the problem that I have noticed for patients that are still very independent in both actions and thoughts is that they do not want their medications under a monitoring service (i.e. “Big Brother” watching). For some of these reasons, our company developed the MedFolio device for those patients that do not want to forget to take their medications, but also really want to maintain an independent and autonomous lifestyle that does not get interrupted with their medication use. And their kids feel secure with the device based on the features below…
1. Stores and organizes 16 different medications. We attempted to design a very stylish device for those individuals that feel uncomfortable with visitors observing their medication use….so many products out on the market today appear very institutional or medicinal in nature.
2. Receive reminders to take their medications on time (by a visual LED lighting system, audio alerts, and an electronic messaging system). The reminders will go off for 2 hours to make sure the patient takes their medication at the right time…if 2 hours elapses then it is considered a missed dose and so the risk of “double dosing” with the next scheduled dose is prevented.
3. Be able to MOVE with their medications (you do not want medications to alter a patient’s lifestyle and keep them tethered to home). The daily pill boxes are detachable so that patients can leave home with their medications and receive dosing reminders by e-mail or text messaging.
4. Patients and caregivers/loved ones need to know what is stored in the pillbox, therefore a unique pill identification system in included in the device which allows the patient to visually identify the pill with its name, dose, and indication. This allows a quick reference of every medication the patient is taking in case of an emergency or a doctors visit ( the device is portable).
5. The device comes with an easy-to-use computer software program so that the patient is empowered to be in charge of their medication use, not an outside agency. A child of an aging parent who lives alone can also do the computer programming part, and then when they leave the device can be left in the possession of the parent to provide the reminders and the organizational system (in other words, it does not need to stay connected to a computer in order to function).
Thank you again for addressing this issue with your audience!
Regards, Julie