Have you ever looked at your prescription and been confused by the dosing directions? You’re not alone. Understanding when and how to most effectively take medications can be daunting. Pharmacists use a variety of instructions, which is cumbersome when trying to organize a day or week’s worth of pills. Properly understanding and taking medications becomes even more difficult when juggling multiple prescriptions. The average adult over 55 takes six to eight medications a day. If you’re like me and are a caregiver to elderly parents, you’ve seen firsthand how difficult it can be to manage medications for ourselves and others when prescription labels can be misunderstood.
A universal medication schedule works to simplify med instruction labels to improve medication adherence and reduce the confusion that comes with taking multiple prescriptions. This universal schedule consolidates the number of times a patient needs to remember to take meds throughout the day.
Dr. Michael Wolf, an associate professor at Northwestern University, explains that 90% of all medications can be taken no more than four times a day. According to Dr. Wolf, a universal medication schedule would standardize dosage instructions to four different times throughout the day:
1. morning meds
2. noon meds
3. evening meds
4. bedtime meds.
Dr. Wolf’s study called “Helping Patients Simplify and Safely Use Complex Prescription Regimes” looks to improve adherence with uniform labeling. In his study, Dr. Wolf presented almost 500 patients age 55 to 74, seven typical pill bottles with dosage instructions and asked them, how would you arrange a daily medication schedule? He found that the patients struggled to consolidate their doses:
About a third didn’t think to take two of the drugs together, even though the instructions on their labels were identical. When one drug was supposed to be taken with food and water and another carried no such instructions, half the study participants didn’t plan to take them at the same time, though they could have. And two-thirds wouldn’t take pills together if one label specified “twice daily” and the other said “every 12 hours,” though those phrases mean the same thing.
Here is an example of a label that portrays the universal medication schedule (Northwestern University study):
While we wait to see if this universal medication schedule will catch on, it is important that we develop our own organized medication schedules for ourselves and our parents. We can start by increasing communication with our doctors and pharmacists. And using simple tools such as pill boxes and pill reminders are great ways to manage medications. Pill boxes provide a visual reminder of whether a daily dose has been taken or forgotten—and pill boxes are low cost. Mobile apps can also help to make medication compliance less overwhelming.
Will one label fit all? Is there a universal answer to this issue? I welcome your feedback!
-Susan
Tags: children’s medications, managing medications, medication adherence, prescriptions
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