Reflect on medication adherence issues you have encountered with geriatric patients in your practicum setting.

Reflect on medication adherence issues you have encountered with geriatric patients in your practicum setting. Explain implications of these issues on patient health, as well as strategies to improve medication adherence for geriatric patients

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Medical Adherence by the Elderly

Medication Adherence Issues Encountered with Geriatric Patients

Most geriatric patients always find adherence to the medication very challenging. A good number of these elderly patients may only adhere to specific medication but yet face a lot of difficulty complying with other medications as instructed by a healthcare provider. Most of such adherence issues go unnoticed if the care provider is not careful. One of the major challenges is lack of a clear and meaningful conversation with such patients. In my practicum setting, some elderly are unable to communicate and hence a clinician resorts to using nonjudgmental and open ended questions. Other patients do not adhere to dosage especially when they are subjected to home care nursing or completely avoid medication that cause pain. Besides this, other geriatric patients suffer from constipation and experiences of sedation which affects the patient assessment hence increasing other side effects. Finally, most elderly patients lose hope of life and hence perceive treatment as a…

Implications of Adherence Issues on Patient Health

Failing to adhere to dosage is a great threat to recurrence of the same illness and furthermore reducing the body immunity of the patients. Such challenges may also result in the elderly growing weaker and may eventually cause premature deaths. Increased medical cost may also be a factor as the elderly may experience re-admissions in …

Strategies to Improve Medication Adherence

It is firstly important for clinicians to understand the major reasons for non-adherence and the personal health goals. With this understanding, the patient can be assigned a care giver who will ensure that all medical provisions are adhered to. Secondly, elderly patients should be encouraged to value not only longevity of life but also its quality. That a quality life needs adhering to prescriptions of the clinician. Lastly, the dosage given to geriatric patients should be well indicated so as they can be helped by family members even while at home with no professional…