When it comes to elderly home care, medication management services are an important part of ensuring that seniors receive the best possible care. These services involve organizing medications and setting up reminders to keep patients up to date. Home health services and caregivers can provide medication management services, where a health professional visits the elderly person's home to remind them of a medication or to personally distribute the appropriate medication. While these services are effective, they can also be costly, especially for those who don't receive other types of home care. Before beginning any medication management program, both the provider and the elderly patient must decide if medication is the right choice.
Once this is established, the doctor usually starts with small doses and then increases the treatment in larger quantities, depending on the patient's response. The provider will monitor the physical and mental well-being of the elderly person; any adverse reaction to the medication causes treatment to be stopped. If your loved one has difficulty self-administering medications, you may want to consider an assisted living community, memory care community, or nursing home that offers medication management as part of their program. Considering the cost of prescription drugs in today's healthcare system, investing in comprehensive evaluations and interventions to help older adults manage their medications accurately and safely will provide cost-effective care and improve quality of life for those who struggle with complex medication regimens. Each home health care provider may have slightly different programs, but the overall process is the same. In a study with home care patients, it was found that 16 percent had stopped taking a medication in the past 24 hours, 6 percent were taking the wrong dose, and 5 percent were experiencing adverse effects from the medication.
Older people who reside in assisted living communities, memory care communities, and nursing homes are more likely to have access to medication management programs through their nursing communities.
