Importance of medication management, to keep patients at home in their community

Importance of medication management, to keep patients at home in their community

Introduction

Elderly people like to live independent inside their homes despite the medical illnesses they face and the medication regime they have to follow. Many are shifted to nursing homes as they fail to adhere to eating the right medicines on time. Nurses can intervene and assist older people in managing their medications and can prevent individuals to admit in expensive nursing homes or hospitals. A registered nurse can greatly increase the quality of life of an elderly person and can help in fully taking care of an individual from any mishap to happen (Franc, L. 2006).

Discussion

Issues that can become Risky

There are many issues that are related with community-dwelling in the elderly and there are risks for more problems in their medical management. The patients between the ages of 66-74 are more adherent to medical regimens that those above 75 who have decreased understanding of their medicines(Henley, A. 1979). Further, it was seen that those individuals who lived alone made more mistakes and mostly forgot to take the medicines. Another issue is that handling each patient is different and of clinical complexity. The more the schedule is complicated, the less the patient will follow it regularly. The elderly are confused by the number of doses they have to take each day and by the greater numbers of medicines. Further, the issue is that the patient takes other medicines which were not originally prescribed by the doctor. Research has showed that around 49% of community based elderly people kept stores of old medicines and mostly prescribed themselves medicines.

Moreover, forgetting to fill the prescriptions is one of the major causes of not taking it. One reason is the lack of ...