Basically my dad was a doctor andhe never allowed anything to comein between his practice and hislove for senior’s health. Heensured everything went right forever senior that he attended to inretirement homes. They were allvery fond of him and consideredhim as family. During my internshipdad taught me a very crucial lessonon seniors’ medication.

The first lesson was on challengesthat seniors face when takingmedications such as the following.

Difficulty in hearing the instructions,that the doctor may give them whileprescribing drugs to them due tohearing impairment.

Another one was in ability to see theright prescription dosage that maycome in due to visual impairment.

Also there is one vital one that we need to constantlyremember. It is the inability of seniors to remember to taketheir medications due to constant memory loss as a result ofold age.

In addition to that, sometimes seniors may be unable to openup medicine bottles due to loss of strength and in turn passon taking their medication.

And also if they experience any swallowing difficulty forspecific medicines such as capsules they may constantlythrow up and the medication may go at a waste.

The last challenge was due to scheduling verymany medications for seniors in a day sincethey may not be able to keep up with thetiming.

In all I had a great teacher in my dad, so whenI started out to work with seniors atRetirement Homes Ottawa I was confidentthat I had taken after a great teacher. So whenI practiced the following basics of safemedication use I knew I was on the right track.

Reminding seniors and theircaregivers to keep an updated listof medicines that they use at alltimes.

Training any caregiver with idealnursing knowledge on how toadminister oral and inject-ablemedicines

Also carrying out regular checkups toensure that all medications are stored intheir designated locations in seniors’homes

I also ensured that all medications werekept out of children’s reach when theyvisited or any other visitor.

In addition to that I constantly took myrounds to ensure that differentmedications did not end up mixed in onebottle.

Medicine storage became my concern as I hadto ensure that they were always stored in cooland dry areas.

Yet if the medications were stored in therefrigerator I had to ensure that they remainedseparated from items in the fridge.

And if need arises I had to find out that oralmedications were kept far away from thosethat were externally used such as creams.

Some seniors would end up sharing their medications withothers and so I had to do great sensitization on this.

But above all every medication that was prescribed had to remain valid, so checking out any that had expired was my job.

The basics of safe medicationuse were usually important inRetirement Homes Ottawa inensuring that seniors remainedsafe and so not knowing themwas no excuse.