My aunt was given a lot of new meds after her last hospitalization. Now she has 10 different pills but some are to be given once, some twice, and some 3 times a day. I use a daily pill box that has A.M. and P.M. slots, but I was wondering if anyone knew of a better system that would ensure that I could remember all of the dosages safely. It is a little bit tricky because some of the pills look alike but are for different things (i. e., both the calcium and statin are long and white).I would hate to make a mistake because of my faulty memory!
It is a week sheet, columns for each day, rows for pills divided into blocks with the times next to each. He then bottles each sets of pills into bottles labeled for each block every morning for each day. Can I post I photo, I will ;) of his set up. I like the blister pack. He just told me he would share his spread sheet.
The latter makes the task of administration so much easier.
Personally, just my thought, I think we are over medicating everyone. Yes, I realize there are pills that are really really needed, but then I wonder about some of the other prescriptions.
My parents are big on multi-vitamins, and Vit B12, and Vit D, and eye vitamins... my gosh they are peeing out a lot of wasted vitamins as the body only stores what you need? I use to take multi-vitamins but stopped and decided to take only those vitamins that my body really needed via a blood test.
Any discontinued pill is removed from the plastic box and stored in another place until I'm sure I won't need it near-term. If a dosage is changed, the dose instructions on the bottle itself are crossed out, and I tape a tiny sticky note to the top of the bottle showing the current dosage.
I also keep that sheet showing everything taped to the inside of the lid up to date.
Hope this helps.
I kept a copy so if there was any question a phone call could help clarify the situation.
There's usually some numerical ID on each pill, so we used that.
Then I color coded any pills that had to be taken more than once.
We had some in home care for my mom following hip surgery and the care people recommended this to us. I was struggling with her mind boggling amount of pills and was overjoyed to hear this was available and it wasn't terribly expensive as I recall. But alas, it was not to be. Mom and dad were both totally indignant that someone should suggest they couldn't organize a few pills.
So I spent the rest of the day, and many hour thereafter, helping mom gets this array of meds sorted into the pill organizer boxes. She gets it right about half the time.
If this is confusing for you Medicare/Medicaid may pay for home health to do the pill preparation for you.