Assistive devices: Medication management aids

Effective medication management is important to manage an underlying disease or the complex symptoms that you may experience, such as pain, nausea or anxiety. Managing multiple medications with different schedules and doses, can be especially challenging if you’re experiencing fatigue, cognitive impairments, or physical limitations. It can lead to missed doses, incorrect administration, and in turn unnecessary discomfort or stress. Here are some common aids that can make it easier to manage your medications.

Medication Organizers or Dispensers

• Organizers offer daily, weekly or monthly pill organization, some with subcompartments for the different times of day.
• Automated medication dispensers are programmed to release specific medications at scheduled times, reducing the risk of missed doses.
• Some organizers and dispensers come with visual, auditory, or vibrating alerts to remind you when it's time to take your medication.

Medication Logs

• Keep handwritten or electronic logs to record medication schedules, dosages, and any observed side effects.
• These logs can serve as a very useful reference during medical appointments to help manage dosages and if medications are causing side-effects.

Medication Reminder Apps

• Mobile applications can send reminders to your smartphone, indicating when it's time to take your medications.
• Some apps also allow caregivers to monitor when medications have been given and receive alerts if doses have been missed.

Alarms and Visual Aids

• Set recurring alarms on your phone for medication times to prevent missed doses.
• Leave your medications out in a place where you will see them daily to lower your chance of forgetting to take them.
• Leave yourself visual reminders like a post it note in places you will see daily such as a bathroom mirror, fridge, or on doors.

Easy Open Medication Packaging

• Ask your pharmacy if they can provide medication in blister packs or easy to open bottles if you have limited dexterity.
• Some pharmacies will put the medication within the dose box for you if requested.

Pill Cutters and Crushers

• Trying to split pills with a knife can be frustrating and dangerous.
• Pill cutters make it easier to precisely reduce dosages and prevent dosage errors.
• These tools can make medications easier to swallow.
• Some medications cannot be split or crushed. Check with your healthcare provider.

Visual impairment aids

• Ask the pharmacy to use large print on the prescription bottles or packages
• Label prescription bottles AM or PM with a black marker in large print
• Color code prescription bottles by time of day (i.e. red for morning, blue for evening)
• Talking devices - Some pharmacies can put you in a program that provides a speaker or on your phone via an app to read aloud the names and dosages for each medication.