Is Your Aging Parent Overmedicated?
By admin on Sep 29, 2008 in Family, Main
Is Grandma Drugged Up? is an excellent article on CNN.com/empoweredpatient.
Over medication is a big problem for seniors and their families. In fact, statistics show 38 million senior Americans have drug complications every year.
180,000 of those complications could kill.
Dr. Jerry Gurwitz, chief of geriatric medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School is cautious about any medication for the elderly.
"…any new symptom in an older person should be considered a drug side effect until proven otherwise."
This is one of the most serious problems we face as caregivers and we need to be vigilant. The lives of our parents could depend it.
The article goes on to list 5 major tips to insure your aging parents or senior loved ones are not being over medicated.
Go to Is Grandma Drugged Up?
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2 Comment(s)
By Rob McInnes on Sep 30, 2008 | Reply
I am a senior caregiver to an aging parent and I am very concerned about this. My mother is in her 80's and lives 1500 miles away. She lives alone and is independent. She takes multiple medications on an irregular schedule. She takes different numbers of pills at different times of the day. I worry that she will get these mixed up or even forget to take some. I try to phone her every few days to keep in touch. But this is not easy for either of us.
By Karen on Oct 20, 2008 | Reply
My mother moved into assisted living in July because of Alzheimer's. At that time she could walk well and was fairly alert. Because she was agitated in her first month there, the assisted living administrators contacted a geriatric psychiatrist, who prescribed 1500 mg. of Depakote daily. My mother turned into a zombie, she was so sedated. It's been very difficult to get them to lower this medicine, although, thanks to her primary care physician, it's been reduced somewhat. But basically I feel that my mother is in a chemical straight jacket, and I don't know what else I can do.