I put the pills out for him and half the time he will insist that he has already taken them. This usually leads to an argument. I know that he THINKS he took them.
i have always given them to my DH while watching him take them. they can become 'hoarders' and you will start finding unswallowed pills in strange places. i found them under cushions/in his pants/on floors/etc. comes the time when they need pill supervison. my DH is latter stage 6! and still has the gumption to 'store' a pill in his side of mouth then spit it out when he thinks nobody is looking. now i have to basically watch him take it or dissolve them in liquid and wash them down. divvi
Lynn's doctors stopped his other medications, nemenda and aricept last year. Now the only pill he needs is the seroquel. It is small, so I tell him it is a baby asprin. So far he takes it without any problem. But back when he did fight taking his medication, I use to crush it in his food.
I also remember someone (trisinger?) saying they use to put the pill in ice cube trays with jello.
In the Things I wish someone had told me back in Stage 2-3thread #1 Medicine can often be "compounded", or put into a cream to be rubbed into the skin, or given as a liquid (so you can hide it in a drink). My DW started to fight me on taking pills two years ago, and I began to dread every morning and night. Why didn't a doctor tell me about the alternatives?
Most pills can be crushed and put in those small pudding cups. Some also come as patches and can be applied where they can't reach. Two problems with the patches is that they are VERY espensive and can be irritating to the skin.
Many pills can be crushed, yes, but not all. ALWAYS check with the pharmacist (not the doctor) before trying this. (Some people suggest that doctors are not as aware of what can or cannot be crushed as a pharmacist.)
Carolyn, I take my own pills when I give my husband his (and when I give the cat hers). That way, he is comfortable that I'm not sneaking him anything "extra".
If pills are hard to swallow (too big, or too rough or bitter), give one pill per teaspoonful of yogurt, whatever flavor he likes best. I'm told that wrapped in the yogurt, the pill goes down without a problem.
I've seen lots and lots of suggestions on how to get patients to take pills ... and the best method can depend on whether the meds are bitter.
For bitter meds, one poster recommended: "We mixed them with a TINY bit of plain vanilla yogurt because this was the consistancy that Mom could handle best. Mix with a little sugar if you think it helps. The reason I say a TINY bit of yogurt is because you want her to get it in on the first bite, and then it will be over. Then immediately follow with some more yogurt or ice creme or whatever she likes best in order to help get the ickey taste out of her mouth. Then drink some water, or whatever to try to flush away the taste that remains in her mouth. Then if food can be given with the med, immediately feed her her meal. We don't want that bitterness to stay in her mouth any longer than it has to. Then after the meal brush her teeth and tongue."
Another said, "We ended-up crushing all his pills and mixing it into 1 teaspoon of apple sauce and hand feeding to my Dad. It must taste horrible so we make a joke about it each time, 3x a day. If you try to disguise it and mix it in a whole serving of applesauce, he can taste it and won't eat all of it. We have tried chocolate pudding (no luck at all) and fruit preserves (some success). The sweeter the better at out house."
Non-bitter pills have been ground up and mixed with all sorts of things: - Dannon Frusion smoothie - Teaspoon of applesauce - Fruit - Dessert baby foods - Ice cream - Smashed bananas with a little sugar - Pudding - Hot chocolate
"I use an ice cream cone. I make a well in the cone, pour the crushed pills into the well and than pack ice cream all around it. I think this works because she REALLY likes ice cream! I've also had success with pie--I peel up top layer, scatter the crushed pills and than replace the layer of pie. Obviously depends on the pie, but works great with more solid pies such as pastry topped or custard based pies."
All of the suggestions are great, and they are going into my "in case I need this file", but the original poster needed help in convincing her husband he hadn't already taken his pills when he hadn't. Mine is at the same stage and this is what works for us.
Both my husband and I use those 7 day pill organizers for our morning pills. He only gets one additional pill a day and I handle that one by counting out 7 of them every week and putting them in a separate container. I give him that pill at 5 every day. When I take out my morning pills, from my organizer I check his to see if he took them or not. If he didn't I take the entire organizer and say, "you need to take your pills." If he says he has already taken them, I point to that day's section and say, "Today is Tuesday, and here are Tuesday's pills."
He puts the pills into the containers himself with supervision. He knows what is in the sections. And for some reason this works convincing him that he hasn't taken them today.
One of the reasons this works is that I used an organizer for years before he began to use them too. And I always said that I was using it because it kept me from forgetting to take my pills. I could see if the section for that day was full or empty. It isn't just for him and his memory problems.
Starling, I think that's a pretty good idea. I already have the organizers. He has no problem taking them. It just that sometimes he swears that he took them.
...which is why I take my own pills and give the cat her meds at the same time I give my husband his. He's less inclined to think I'm trying to make him take something extra that way.
But sooner or later, it won't make any difference what "reason" our ADLOs give for refusing to take meds, and then we have to get sneaky and hide them in whatever food they'll eat.
Sunshyne, you are absolutely right. I handle the evening pills the same way you do. He takes his; I take mine. No cat so I don't give the cat anything, but I do unmake the bed, pull out clean clothes for him for tomorrow and make tomorrow's coffee. <grin>
When they stop being able to take pills, or won't take them at all, that is a whole other deal. I've taken notes. Something sweet!
We've used the weekly pill organizers for both of us for years, and I have filled his for some of those years because he felt it was too much trouble.
He has sometimes taken more than one dose, and sometimes mixes up am with pm. I recently started putting out only one day (1 am and 1pm) and just started putting out only one dose at a time, still in the pill organizers. Everything else is locked up. I'm sure eventually we'll need to make sure the meds go in the mouth and down the throat, but we are taking a step at a time as is necessary.
Oh ... word of warning, Carolyn. My husband often objected when I tried to give him his meds on the grounds he'd just taken them, just as yours is doing. I used to put his morning pills out in a small cup in his bathroom in the evening, right after I'd given him his evening pills and just before we went to bed, so they'd be all ready for him the next day. Twice, I heard suspicious noises coming from the bathroom, and rushed in to find him trying to take the morning meds within ten minutes of having taken the evening meds (under protest, no less). Had to change that routine...
So don't put the pills out until it's time for your husband to take them.
I have used the 7 day organizer for years for myself and now use one for my husband. He has a white one and I have a blue one, while my Mom was living she had a green. After accidently taking hers myself, I keep each of ours in a different cabinet. You know pills are kind of like driving sometime. You are so used to taking them you automatically put them in your mouth without thinking. Trying not to do that dangerous thing again.
I have had to fix my husbands myself for over a year. Usually I hand them to him and keep an eye out that he doesn't take the pm during the am.
My Mother distrusted me with fixing her pills and giving them to her. She wanted to know what each one was for, who ordered it for her etc. I had to take over hers last year.
The nice thing about the Jello shooters was that the pill often dissolved into the jello by the time it was set. That little maroon one...Risperdal? It sure dissolved real quick. No crushing necessary.
In my opinion, telling an AD patient to use a pill box to help them 'remember' is kind of cruel. This isn't an absent-minded perfesser who just needs a trigger, this is a person for whom the idea of 'pill box' has gotten lost right along with the process of taking pills. Add to that that you can also be dealing with paranoia since they don't even know why you're giving them pills. I remember the Pill Wars. I hated them with every hate I could hate with.
Has anyone ever tried a pill cup? It works. You just have to have a willing participant is the problem. But if you want to get pills down and never have known they were there, they work great.
I gave Andrea for pills in Coke. She liked the sweet and it slimed the pills up so they would slither down.
I don't use the pill organizer to help him remember. It is to help ME remember and to make it possible for me to monitor whether or not he has taken them.
We are definitely talking about LOs at different stages of the disease if she has lost the concept of a pill box. My husband isn't that far along and pill boxes still work.
At this point in time he takes his own morning pills from the organizer 99% of the time, on his own, with no prompting. He is also still filling the organizer mostly on his own. He has one medication where he doesn't take the same amount every day, and the pattern can change every month, or even worse every 10 days, so I help out with that one. At some point the kind of organizer with change to a daily am/pm type. And then go away as far as he is concerned.
At a very early stage of the disease calendars and notebooks work too. It is odd that this drug organizer still works when the calendar and notebook no longer do, but I'll use it while it does.
I agree with Starling, the pill organizer is for ME.
My husband couldn't possibly fill the organizers, and he doesn't even remember that he needs to take pills, let alone which ones. (And then there are the eye drops, and right now an ointment because he has some weird thing growing on his hand, and when he's had surgery for his skin cancer, then there are treatments for that.) He has different pills for morning and evening, I have different pills for morning and evening, the cat (thank god) has the same pill morning and evening except when she has a UTI. I have four different colors of organizers for the humans in the house, and I keep the morning organizers in a different place from the evening organizers, and I STILL have to worry that I'm going to give my husband his morning pills in the evening or vice versa. I swear, it's contagious.
I used the pill organizer for me, too. I made sure to keep it out of her sight. I think the sight of it triggered a suspicious reaction. She definitely was a paranoid tendency. She was up to 4 pills, and one of them was LARGE. Finally got to where she just couldn't swallow it and I gave up. I think it was calcium, anyway. I made sure she got calcium juices and such.
When she went into the NH, I told them that she didn't take to pill swallowing real great. They told me that she;d do fine. Turns out that when she sat down at the dinner table, and everyone was handed a pill cup and told to swallow, she did fine. I think the people who said that they take their pills at the same time as the AD spouse are in the right track. I guess if everyone has pills, then the paranoia isn't as great. And when she could no longer swallow pills, that's how I found out you can put them in cream or liquid form. Might have been nice if the doctor had helped me out a bit THERE.
After we started to pack up my house (after she went into the NH), I found pills all OVER the place! Hidden under the mattress, in shoes, under the bed, you name it. I'm lucky the grandkids didn't eat any of them. Well, I hope they didn't!
Both DH and I take a number of pills. Every once in a while some get dropped. We anxiously go chasing after the pill(s) to get them before the cats (5) do. And every time we remind ourselves how much effort it takes to get pills into the cats and how needless (probably) our concern is! PatB
She only took four? My husband is currently at seven in the morning, and six in the evening.
But the main reason for chasing down any pill that manages to escape, PatB, is what the cats will do if they find a pill before I do. Hairballs are fairly easy to clean up, but what a cat does when it tastes something bad like a pill... yech!
My husband uses a 7 day pill organizer too. He is accustomed to taking them every morning with breakfast. He still fills them himself but I check when he's not around. There are times when he puts two of the same or leaves out one or something. ALSO, the concept of the PROPER DAY doesn't work very well any more. It doesn't seem to matter which day he takes the pills from..and he argues that he's taken them when the 'proper day's pills are still in the container. He may take them from the end, the middle, or wherever and THEN decide to refill before the whole thing is empty. It just doesn't make sense to him when I try to explain.
The day will come when I will probably lay out only the one day's pills each morning with breakfast too. This is probably the ONLY area in which he has actually participated in the management of his own health care, even though he complains.
I don't lay out the pills because he will not take them that way. I put them in his hand, pour a glass of water, and say, "Take these". That is the only thing that works. I cannot depend on him for any decision.
Yes, Sid still fills the 7 day box himself. I check to make sure they're all in there as they should be. His "visual" memory and grasp of numbers have always been good, and they are still in tact. Unfortunately, he only goes by visual and numbers, as in - he lines them up by - "4 big ones, 3 little ones, etc. He can't remember what each one is for. It works for him for now, because he always knows by counting if he's missing one, but then I need to tell him which one is missing and what it is for.
A bit different here. I monitor his AD meds. I put a new patch on his back every morning and give him his namenda at the same time. All is well with this. He also takes a namenda at night before bed.
However, he also takes a small pill for his high BP in the a.m. He insists on handling that one himself. He has a little pill organizer. He puts 7 pills in the Sunday slot. At the end of the week, it's empty. I've tried and tried to get him to understand that if one is left at the end of the week, it means he's forgotten to take one during the week and that is not good.
"You just take care of yourself and I'll take care of myself and we'll get along just fine."
I do try to keep track of that med but he is absolutely adament about me not having anything to do with it.
He also takes one aspirin a day. He takes it at night before bed. I suggested he take it with his namenda. He gets very exercised about my suggestions.
So, I try to keep track by listening and observing, but, I'm sure glad he doesn't have to take aything else. Maybe time will change this. Right now, I'm confused.
My husband has not been able to fix his pills for a year. He can' t even find his Motrin in the cabinet in plain sight. We use the 7 day organizer. He has no idea what his pills are or for or how many. Just takes what I give him.
My Mother, was paranoid about her meds. She would sit and count them and look up what they were for, etc. A big help for me, in her situation. I made a computer list of her meds for morning, supper, bedtime with a list with the names and what they were for. I glued one of the pills in place by each description. That worked for a good while until she just would take what I gave her mashed up with some applesauce, or until they changed the pills on me.
My DH just takes whatever I give him... however, he constantly tells me that I've already given them to him. I do take my own pills at the same time, and when the dog is on a prescription (which is often) I also do that at the same time. Kind of gives him confidence. He remembers that he takes the pills every AM, so he thinks he already had them. I guess that's normal. He used to hide them, or carry them around. Now i won't let him leave the breakfast table til he's taken them. At night however, sometimes he 'knocks ' some on the floor and I don't find them until I vacuum (which isnot that often.) It's not easy
Chris, my husband also takes what I give him. Every morning after I brush my teeth, I take my vitamin and Prevacid, and put his pills in one of those little 3 ounce paper cups and take them to him and he takes them with no trouble at all. The evening routine is that I give them to him (again in the cup) as he gets his dinner and iced tea and takes them prior to eating. He's always been good about taking his pills. I started this routine Feb 2007 when he couldn't remember if he had taken them. I suggested that I give them to him because I could remember, and he said okay and it was that easy! I guess we're all entitled to a little luck every once in a while! <grin>
They have smaller cups than the bathroom size. Just hold about a Tablespoon and work better. Just ask at your Pharmacy. I imagine they are cheaper too.
I switched to the 7 day organizers 3 years ago. My husband often insists that he already took the pills. Recenty, I realized that he had taken 2 days of pills on one day on a few occasions. That was scary. Now, I place the pills for each morning or evening in a small container (the cap to a prescription bottle) and make sure he takes them the right way. I've also seen him dump pills into the glass and then pour water on top of them. I try to catch him before he pours the water into the glass!
After he took all of Weds., Thurs.,and started Friday's between Wed. and Thursday a.m. and we end at the ER for an overdose check, I took over the meds totally. I had been checking the dispenser, but didn't realize he'd emptied one was in another. I keep all the dispenser boxes and supply bottles in a locked tackle box. Each night I pour the separate boxes (am, noon,eve--only use 3) into unlabelled pill bottles. At night I set out his a.m. bottle and his Potassium packet. Sometime mid-morning to noon I pout out his midday batch and I put out his eve batch at supper--5-6 ish. He is excellent about taking them, but just can't keep track and I can't trust him not to help himself if he thinks he needs some. Also, he no longer knows what pill does what nor how many he's supposed to be taking of any of them. With his Learnng Disabilities, he never knew the names of meds, just the pink one was his temper pill and the little blue one was his shaky pill, and the funny shaped blue one was his "pee pill" (Proscar), etc. At the same time I count I check for what needs refills and call them in for pick up in a day or 3.