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Caregiver Corner - Managing Medications
There are many diseases that require medication to manage. The regularity and reliability of taking the medication is extremely important in preventing complications from the disease. If you are the caregiver for someone being treated with a complex medication regimen, you might want to consider using a medication management system. If you have been a caregiver for a bit of time you know first-hand that people don’t like to be told what to do or when to do it. Many care recipients resist feeling controlled by the caregiver and taking medications provides an opportunity to resist feeling controlled by others.
Unfortunately, this situation puts the caregiver under tremendous stress. The caregiver has accepted the responsibility to try and keep their loved one as healthy and safe as possible, to achieve this goal, the care recipient has to take the medications as prescribed. However, the care recipient resents being controlled and told what to do, and therefore, resists taking the medications when instructed to do so by the caregiver. It’s not a rational choice and often the care recipient knows that but the desire to maintain a sense of independence is so great, the care recipient will often jeopardize their health rather than become compliant. The issue isn’t the medication, it’s the feeling of being controlled, treated like a child, not an active participant in their own care.
Medication management systems can be an effective way to return responsibility for taking medications to the care recipient. Often the institution of a new device can be intriguing and can engage your loved one in learning more about the device. Setting it up so reminders about taking medication can come from someone other than the caregiver can help diffuse the tension created when the caregiver is continually reminding the care recipient to act. The neutral 3rd party issues the reminder to the care recipient and in many instances, the care recipient responds in the desired way and takes the medication. Even if the task of actually taking the medication requires more judgement than your loved one can manage, it can still help with the tension surrounding reminders about medication time because the system notifies the care recipient and the care recipient then goes to the care giver to say, “I got a reminder to take medication”. There is still some control left to the care recipient. Most of the stress reported by family care givers isn’t related to the degree of difficulty with any of the care giving tasks, rather it is the stress resulting from fighting with the care recipient over control of the tasks. Anything you can do to minimize the fight over control, while still assuring the safety of your loved one is worthwhile doing.
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