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It's
imperative that you develop a safe, effective system for organizing
and identifying your prescription and over-the-counter
medications—what they are, what's the
prescribed or recommended dosage, how often you need to take them.
Start by asking your pharmacist to attach large-print
labels to the pill bottles. If this
proves ineffective, here are a few suggestions for identifying and
organizing medications:
- Use
a dark-colored tray when organizing medications. The contrast with
the medication containers will help with identifying them. A tray's
raised edge can prevent dropped pills from rolling onto the floor.
- The
size and shape of a pill can help with identification. Practice
feeling different pills in your hand until you can recognize them.
- Store
medicines in different places that serve as reminders, such as the
nightstand if it's to be taken at night, or in kitchen if it should
be taken three times a day.
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Large print and braille labels.
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- Use
a weekly or daily pill organizer. These boxes, which are plastic with a section for
every day of the week, are often useful. They come with large print
labels, but make sure that the print is a contrasting color—black
on a white label, for example. Pill boxes also come with tactile
labels. Ask a friend, family member, or your home health aide to
fill your pill box for you. There are also talking
pill organizers available.
- The size and shape
of some containers may be enough of a clue to help you recognize
them. Some over-the-counter medications—certain brand cough
syrups and topical creams, for example—are recognizable by
their unique shape, size or texture.
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Braille label.
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- Bottles
can be labeled in braille or large print using Dymo
or label-on tape.
Also, the first letter of the medication name can be written in
white glue or a 3D pen (also known as a Hi-Mark pen)
on the lid. When dry, these raised markings can be read with the
finger tips. Low vision aids such as magnifiers
are the most popular method for reading
labels and pill boxes. Models, such as the
Medifier, fit
all standard prescription vials.
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A Medifier magnifies the print on a prescription bottle.
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- Rubber
bands and strips of tape can also be used to differentiate bottles
or even provide dosage information. You could use two rubber bands
on a bottle to indicate two pills to be taken each day, for example.
Or, if you have three different prescriptions in similarly sized
bottles, you could mark the first with one rubber band, the second
with two bands, and the third with three bands so that you can tell
which prescription is which.
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Tactile labels and use of different numbers of rubber bands to mark bottles.
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- Talking
labels are an option. Using a VOXCOM, medication labels
are recorded on a card
and attached to the bottle. To identify the medication, simply slide
the card through the VOXCOM and
it reads the label aloud. Some systems require the
pharmacist to set them up, such as Scriptalk but others, such as the Tel-Rx
Prescription Recorder,
you can set up yourself.
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This bottle comes with a recording device to note the contents of the bottle; once recorded,
push the button on the side to hear what's in the bottle.
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- Place
each medication on a separate shelf in the medicine cabinet. (This
method is not advisable for people experiencing memory problems.)
- If
there are no children in your home, ask your pharmacist for a
conventional pill bottle rather than the child-proof variety.
- When
attaching braille labels to medication bottles, be sure to place
them on the side of the bottle that does not have the label so that
someone else can still help by reading the print.
- Some
prescription boxes come with an alarm system to remind the
individual when to take the medication.
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Tel-Rx allows an individual to record up to 20 seconds of the information from a prescription label.
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Having trouble identifying your medications? Find out about AFB's Rx Label Enable Campaign.
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