By Mark Ambrogi
Home Instead Senior Care’s mission is to make certain children to talk with their elderly parents about drugs.
More specifically, reminding their senior parents to take their prescription medication at the right time and correct dosages.
Home Instead Senior Care, which serves Carmel, Fishers, Zionsville and Geist, is highlighting a program “Let’s Talk about Rx,” which encourages families to talk to senior loved ones about the potential dangers of missing medications.
“We educate them on how to converse, signs to look for and those type of things about managing medication,” said Jeff Sewell, who owns the Indianapolis Home Instead Senior Care franchise on the north side of Indianapolis.
More than 100,000 seniors in North America go to the hospital each year because of medication management problems.
Home Instead provides personal care for seniors who want to stay in their own homes. Home Instead doesn’t provide nurses or physical therapists.
“We provide home care, companionship, medication reminders, which is one of the big things we do,” Sewell said. “We have a lot of clients who have Alzheimer’s or some other dementia. We take care of hygiene, run errands, homemaking, meal preparations or those kinds of things.”
Sewell said the senior population is exploding with 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 every day.
“We have a website people can go to on how to manage meds,” Sewell said. “Seniors want to remain independent. They want to stay in their own home. For all their life, they’ve managed the whole family’s affairs, including their own medication management. Now it becomes a time when mom or dad maybe aren’t as cognizant as they have been in the past and they just need someone to help them out and look over their shoulder.”
For more, visit LetsTalkAboutRx.com.
Sidebar (if room)
Five tips from Home Instead Senior Care
- Have a family or professional caregiver accompany the senior to the doctor to ask questions and ensure full understanding of the medication regimen
- Make one doctor the gatekeeper to manage medications and discuss any problems taking a medication, such as the inability to swallow a pill
- Use medication organizers, such as a pill box
- Use medication trackers
- Consider ordering medications from a pharmacy such as Simple Meds that provides pre-packaged doses of medications and vitamins
