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Capturing how older adults manage their medications at home

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Capturing how older adults manage their medications at home

In this project we invited older adults with sensory impairment to tell us (and show us) their stories about challenges they face and strategies they use to manage their medicines at home.

Professor Margaret Watson
Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences
Project
Credits
White squares on a white background.
A cupboard full of medicine in a wooden cabinet.

People living longer creates challenges

Because science and medicine improves all the time, people are living much longer. This means it is very likely that as an older adult we will have multiple different medicines to keep us healthy at home.

Difficulty using medicines

People face challenges trying to make sure they order and pick up the right medicines and then at home organise them and take the right ones at the right time.

A plastic container filled with different types of pills.
There's a lot of people think 'Tablets and capsules? Very tricky', and they are because there's lots of medicines that actually look very similar - Professor Margaret Watson
A computer monitor on a table.

Listen to Prof. Margaret Watson

In an interview on RNIB Connect Radio, Professor Margaret Watson explains more about the project and its aims.

Sensory impairment and medicines

Older adults with sensory impairment face even more challenges as many medicines and their packaging are small, all the same shape/colour, hard to see or read or take the right way to make sure they work.

There's a lot of people think 'Tablets and capsules? Very tricky', and they are because there's lots of medicines that actually look very similar - Professor Margaret Watson
A green plate with flowers on it.

Personal strategies

People often pop pills into little dishes around the home – in this case someone has chosen a coloured dish so that she can see the white pills better (she has a visual impairment).

Adding notes, writing or elastic bands

People showed us all sorts of ways they organise medicines, like pill boxes. Some people add notes, or writing, or elastic bands to packages or boxes to help them see or feel the pills they need to take.

A clear plastic container with writing on it.

Personal ways of organising medicines

Participants used stories, text, notes and photos and videos to show us how they order and pick up their medicines, how they organise them in ways personal to them that helped them remember when and what to take.

More from Professor Margaret Watson

Professor Watson describes how volunteers record their daily habits and what the findings of the study can be used for.

An example of a mind map for project learning.
If you have visual loss and you can't see what you're doing, these tiny little bottles [of eye drops] can be very challenging to hold in the right place and to administer. - Professor Margaret Watson

What the project has produced

Peoples’ real needs and lived experience have been used to produce a product and service specification for better future solutions (technology, policies, practices) to help people manage medications in a safe and effective way.

Look at other case studies

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