Does anyone know of a good way to keep meds organized and keep track of correct dosing schedule?

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Does anyone know of a good way to keep meds organized and keep track of correct dosing schedule?

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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!

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There are pharmacy services out there that can produce daily or weekly "Blister packs". With all the meds nicely arranged an customized for each patient.

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.

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Get a different calcium pill, one that looks different than the statin. There are pill boxes that are for three or even four times a day. There are also electronic systems where meds are dispensed on a programmed schedule.

If this is confusing for you Medicare/Medicaid may pay for home health to do the pill preparation for you.

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My Dad designed his own computer spreadsheet for his pills.... did it help him?... some what, but he still wasn't taking all his daily pills as the pharmacy use to tattle on him to his physican say he was a month late in renewing said pills :P Dad hates taking pills so I do understand, as I am the same way.

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.

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I got weekly pill boxes, the kind with one well for each day of the week. I got three, yellow for am, green for noon and blue for pm. I set mom's pills up once a week, reading each bottle as I filled the boxes.

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In addition to the pill boxes with sections for breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtime, I also created a chart with the same information, but with description and color of the pill as well as dosage and any other pertinent information (such as take with water, take with food, etc.,).

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.

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The suggestions provided sounds helpful. When I was taking care of mom and I used a dry ease board to note times of next meds. We kept a notebook of times and meds given so that the family could tell what has been given or not. At times we added notes on how things were going.

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I keep my melds in a clear plastic box. On the inside of the lid, all of my dosages are carefully listed. It would, as an example, be transported to the hospital with me. When I'm filling my am/pm pill box, each container comes out of the plastic box in turn and loads the pill box. When done with it, it's set aside. When the plastic box is empty, I'm done.

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.

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As already stated, ask the pharmacy to blister pack her medications/supplements.
The latter makes the task of administration so much easier.

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I really like the blister pack idea; I think I will look into it, as well as the chart suggestion. (Heck, I think I might make a chart for myself, as I also take several different pills. I find myself forgetting about my own meds sometimes as I struggle to keep Aunty's pills straight! !)

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My husband created an excel spread sheet for his dad's medication. It can get tricky when they throw in a medication that can't be taken within a certain time frame of something else. It will throw his whole block scheduling off. He also sets alarms on his phone to remind him to bring the pills to his dad on time. His dad starts at 6 am taking his medication. Home health, and over this past weekend, the ER and hospital staff have been impressed with the spread sheet to keep track of everything.

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.

Does anyone know of a good way to keep meds organized and keep track of correct dosing schedule?

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