BLOOMINGTON, Ill.— As the proportion of older adults rises in the United States, a growing number of patients must learn to juggle multiple medications with potentially complex dosage schedules, while also facing age-related changes that may hamper their ability to manage medication.
Millions of people in the United States gamble with their health each day by not taking prescribed medications correctly. The World Health Organization predicts only 50 percent of patients typically take medicine as prescribed.
A study by Illinois Wesleyan University nursing faculty suggests health care professionals can look at an older patient’s lifestyle to understand whether they may be successful in managing their prescriptions and needed medications.
The IWU study results, which will be published in April in Advancing in Nursing Science Quarterly, present characteristics of patients who successfully manage their medicine. “There are certain features that seem to influence whether or not someone will manage their medicine well, which we call ‘living orderly’ or ‘aging well,’” said associate professor of nursing Kathy Scherck.
Scherck along with Susan Swanlund, assistant professor of nursing, and Sharie Metcalfe and Shelia Jesek-Hale, both associate professors of nursing, studied a group of older adults in order to assess what problems they might be having managing medicine on their own. “What we found surprised us,” said Swanlund. “We found a group of people who were all successful at self-management. This presented a possible guideline for healthcare providers to note who might do well, and conversely, who might need more assistance, with medication.”