MEDICATION SELF-MANAGEMENT

Mom had Parkinson disease, but for a long time she did not need a caregiver.  In fact, she was the caregiver for my father.  She also managed their finances, arranged doctor appointments, and handled the everyday business of their lives.  One of her tasks was ordering medications for both of them and loading them into pill boxes every week.

DEMENTIA SYMPTOMS TRIGGER CONCERN

About six months after the death of my father, we began to notice changes in Mom’s behavior.  Some of the changes included heightened anxiety, depression, and forgetfulness.  She also began to hide things.  Since these are all signs of dementia, we were justifiably worried.  We took her to her neurologist and her geriatrician who tweaked her meds and sent her home.  The erratic behavior continued.

YOU HAVE TO GET THE DOSES RIGHT

One day my sister, Pamela, was sitting with Mom while she did her weekly pill routine.  Mom kept losing track of where she was in the process.  She was adding extra pills for some days and completely skipping other meds.  Pam took over the responsibility of loading the pills.  To everyone’s delight, Mom’s erratic behavior disappeared once she began to receive the correct dosages again.

Since Mom took 38 pills at seven different times during the day, we quickly became aware of the complexity of doing accurate pill loading.  Even for someone not at risk of dementia, the task was a mental challenge.  This is one of the family caregiver jobs I would have truly hated.  Thank you, Pam.

YOU STILL HAVE TO REMEMBER TO TAKE THE PILLS

We had to address a second crisis in medication management about six months later, when Mom began to demonstrate dementia symptoms again.  She also took a couple of falls. We realized that it did no good to provide the correct pills in neat little boxes if Mom was going to forget to take them.  We bought her a beeper with six alarms to remind her to take her pills during the day.  That worked for a while until she simply did not notice the alarms going off.

LIVING ALONE NOT AN OPTION

Once we realized that Mom could no longer be relied upon to administer her own medications we had to move to the next stage of caregiving.  Mom had a live-in caregiver who managed the medications perfectly.  Mom was able to age-in-place for about a year.  Later she moved to a group home with full-time skilled nursing. Unfortunately, as her Parkinson’s advanced we could no longer blame her dementia on her medications.

CHECK OUT THE MEDICATIONS FIRST

Medications are the number one cause of falls in nursing homes. Interactions of medications, missed dosages, and overdoses can all trigger dementia.   Most dementias, including Alzheimer’s disease, are not reversible.  When a family first experiences dementia in a loved one, everyone is terrified.  Before you panic, make sure you verify that the medications are being delivered accurately–all the time.  Fortunately, medication mix ups can usually be diagnosed and corrected.  Go for the easy stuff first.

Copyright TheNewElder 2012