By JIM DUNLAP
Special to The Eagle
The Brazos Valley Area Agency on Aging encourages all Brazos Valley residents to be careful with their use of prescribed and over-the-counter drugs.
Reports in the news media and medical journals indicate prescription errors are widespread. For instance:
• On May 23, The Eagle reported that "federal officials will begin monitoring prescription drug use by millions of Medicare participants in an effort to identify safety problems."
• A recent report by the Institute of Medicine stated that "medication errors in all settings harm, injure or kill more than 1.5 million Americans every year."
• In 2004 the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that elderly patients in the U.S. receive inappropriate drugs in one of every 12 physician visits. Drugs often misprescribed are pain relievers, sedatives and antidepressants. The misprescribed drugs can cause falls, blurry vision and over-sedation.
The reasons that drugs were wrongly prescribed for older patients were poor medical training for treating seniors, a lack of doctor-pharmacy coordination and failure to give the patients proper information.
• Drug problems send nearly a quarter of older Americans to hospitals or nursing homes each year at a cost well into the billions, MSNBC has reported.
• According the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention: "Adverse drug events cause over 700,000 emergency department visits each year."
Using multiple medications increases a person's risk for experiencing a medication error, especially when the drugs are prescribed by multiple physicians and dentists and dispensed by multiple pharmacies.
Patients need to keep all of their prescribing health-care providers informed about their medications. And using just one pharmacy is another safeguard; a pharmacist can detect potential problems and help patients head them off.
To complicate the picture, people take over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and mineral supplements, herbal remedies, and nutritional supplements that neither their health care providers nor their pharmacists may know about.
So the message is that each patient is a critical member of his or her health care team. And here are his or her responsibilities, compiled with assistance from Jim Killingsworth, chief pharmacist at AppleTree pharmacy:
• Research and understand the medical condition(s) you have.
• Take medicines exactly as prescribed. In particular, finish all antibiotics as directed unless the prescribing doctor tells you to stop early.
• Talk to your doctor and your pharmacist about your medications.
• Learn what to expect from the drugs: what they are supposed to do, how you will know if they are working and what the possible side effects are.
• Report dosage changes by your doctor to your pharmacist immediately.
n Report any side effects to your doctor and pharmacist.
• Keep an up-to-date list of all your medicines, how much you take and when you take them. Include on your list not only your prescription medicines but all over-the-counter medicines, vitamins and mineral supplements, herbal remedies and nutritional supplements that you are taking.
n Give your health care providers and pharmacist a copy of this list.
n Discard any outdated medicines, whether prescribed or over-the-counter.
n Store your medicines properly in a cool, dry place. The bathroom medicine cabinet is typically used, and it is not a good storage place because of the humidity. Refrigerate any medicines that require it. Don't crush or chew them unless your doctor or pharmacist says it's OK.
• Keep medications in their original containers.
• Ask for patient counseling every time you fill a prescription.
If you have additional questions or your organization would like to hear a presentation on this subject, contact Jim Dunlap at the Area Agency on Aging, 595-2800.
• Jim Dunlap is a volunteer program director working with the Area Agency on Aging. His e-mail address is jimalz@yahoo.com.
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