How to manage medication at home

Did you know that 2 in 3 Australians over the age of 75 take five or more medications every day? As your loved one ages, good medication management becomes increasingly important.

It doesn’t matter whether they take prescription or non-prescription medicines, the more they take, the more likely they are to make mistakes or experience problems.

Those issues can include:

• Side effects like dizziness or fainting, which could lead to falls.
• Interactions that can cause drowsiness, confusion or memory problems.
• A separate medical condition getting worse because of a medication you’re taking for something else.

Medication management issues are common. According to NPS Medicine Wise, over 140,000 Australians have to go to hospital each year with medicine problems and in 69% of cases, it could have been avoided.

So, what are some ways that you can help reduce the risk of medication issues with your loved one?

Create a medication list

The more medications you or your loved one take, the harder it can be to remember which ones you’re on. One way to manage medication is to create a medication list.

In a medicine list, you can record information like:

• All medicines both prescription and non-prescription along with any supplements or vitamins they might take.
• What they take each medication for.
• How much they take.
• How often they take it.

To make things easier, NPS Medicine Wise have paper lists you can download in 10 languages or a smart phone app for those who are more technologically minded.

Get a medication organiser

When managing multiple medications, many people find it easier to use a medication organiser so you know when to take each pill.

Medication organisers like Webster-pak™ have separate compartments for each day of the week and can even be broken up into times of the day. This way you can see what they’ve taken and what they haven’t, depending on the time of the day.

You can buy a blister pack from the pharmacy and they can even help you sort out medications into the days and times you need them.

Store medications in the right way

The way you store medications is important. Things like sunlight, heat and humidity can affect the way the medication works and how effective it is.

When your loved one first receives medication, chat to the pharmacist about how best to store it. This information should also be on the packaging.

Some medication may need to be kept in the fridge. But a lot of medication will say it needs to be stored in a cool, dry place, in the original packaging and away from children.

Keep an eye on combination medications

Managing combination medications can be difficult as they have more than one active ingredient. Sometimes they’re combined because it makes it easier to take the one medication rather than two separate ones. It can also sometimes be cheaper.

However, combination medications come with risks. If you don’t know what the active ingredient is, you may risk overdosing. An example of this is cold and flu tablets. They contain paracetamol, but if you also take paracetamol separately, you can risk damaging your liver.

If you or your loved one has a side effect, it’s more difficult to know which active ingredient is causing it. It’s also harder to change dosages of the active ingredients in combination medications.

Get a Home Medicines Review

A Home Medicines Review is when an accredited pharmacist checks what medication you’re taking. It is funded by the Australian Government so you don’t have to pay for it, but you do need a referral from a GP.

The pharmacist will visit your loved one at their home. Before they visit, make sure you get all their medication ready. This will include:

• your prescription medicines
• any over-the-counter medicines they take
• any vitamins, supplements and herbal remedies they take

Don’t forget things like inhalers, patches, creams and eye or ear drops.

When the pharmacist visits, they will check the medications and make sure they’re not past their use-by date. They will talk to you and your loved one about how they take each medication and where they store it. They will give you both suggestions about how to best manage medications.

They will then send a report to your loved one’s GP. The GP may suggest changing some medications or finding other ways to better support your loved one’s medication management.

Your pharmacist can then support you with these changes.

Check your old medications

Although it might seem sensible to keep medication ‘just in case’, it can actually be quite dangerous. Not only does medication degrade over time, if they find their way into the wrong hands, they could be poisonous.

Also, medication shouldn’t be thrown out in the regular bin or flushed down the sink. If they enter the waterways, dangerous chemicals can change the environment.

The best thing to do is go through all your old medications and decide whether you need them anymore. If not, you can take them to any pharmacy to be disposed of. This is called the Return Unwanted Medications project.