How To Improve Your Medication Memory

Here’s a question you should be able to answer without much hesitation: what kind of medication do you take? You’d be surprised how many patients can’t accurately answer that question. Doctors are surprised, too.

A new study out of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago shows between 40 and 60 per cent of 119 people asked couldn’t tell their physicians which medicine they were on. The problem: if they don’t know and their doctors don’t know, it’s impossible for the medical professionals to prescribe anything else to treat other conditions because there’s a risk of dangerous interactions.

Researchers looked at patients with high blood pressure and asked them to name the specific kinds of pills they were on. They compared their responses to what was on their chart and were disturbed to discover many of them weren’t even close. And that’s just part of the problem.

Some patients admitted they were still taking drugs their physicians had told them to stop using. And even looking at the charts didn’t help that much, because while it indicates what was prescribed, there’s no guarantee the person was actually taking it.

“Does it mean the patients are not responding well to the medication or are they not using the medication?” Dr. Stephen Persell explains about the dilemma. “Patients and doctors have to be in agreement about what drugs patients are actually taking.” The difficulty is especially acute in older people who may be taking more than one drug for a variety of complaints.

What can be done? Persell suggests having people actually bring their pills with them to the doctors’ office can go a long way to filling in the blanks. And changing those long chemical names of drugs to something easier to remember can fill the bill, as well.

Here are some suggestions to help you solve the problem before it becomes one.

• Ask your doctor to write down the generic and brand names of all the drugs you’re taking. Bring it with you to your next appointment, or even better, bring the drugs themselves.
• Keep track of what you’re taking and when on a chart and bring that, too.
• Make sure you’re not taking expired or out of date pills by periodically checking to see how long they’ve been in your medicine cabinet. Many are good only for about six months but some will have a ‘best before’ date.
• Make sure your doctor simplifies the instructions for taking them. “Take two pills twice a day” can be confusing to some. Does it mean take two pills or four? Day or night?
• If you have any adverse reactions or questions about what you’re on, ask your doctor or your pharmacist.
• Don’t assume you should continue taking something just because you have a refill. Ask your doctor. Similarly, don’t stop taking something because you feel better. Many prescriptions require you to take the entire dose. And check the look of any refilled pills. Do they appear to be what you were taking? If not, ask your druggist why not.
• Don’t assume you have to take anything if it doesn’t appear to be working after a period of time. Make sure you let your doctor know.
• If you’re seeing more than one physician, make sure all are aware who they are, why you’re seeing them and what each has prescribed for you.
• Watch the price. Even though some meds are covered by OHIP or drug plans, if there’s a sudden switch in the cost, ask why. You may have been given the wrong pills.