The basics of safe medication are many. From time to time they may range but it is the circumstances that would determine the applicable ones. So do not ignore them but rather practice them one at a time.

2. Basically my dad was a doctor and
he never allowed anything to come
in between his practice and his
love for senior’s health. He
ensured everything went right for
ever senior that he attended to in
retirement homes. They were all
very fond of him and considered
him as family. During my internship
dad taught me a very crucial lesson
on seniors’ medication.

3. The first lesson was on challenges
that seniors face when taking
medications such as the following.
 Difficulty in hearing the instructions,
that the doctor may give them while
prescribing drugs to them due to
hearing impairment.
 Another one was in ability to see the
right prescription dosage that may
come in due to visual impairment.

4. Also there is one vital one that we need to constantly
remember. It is the inability of seniors to remember to take
their medications due to constant memory loss as a result of
old age.
In addition to that, sometimes seniors may be unable to open
up medicine bottles due to loss of strength and in turn pass
on taking their medication.

5. And also if they experience any swallowing difficulty for
specific medicines such as capsules they may constantly
throw up and the medication may go at a waste.

6. The last challenge was due to scheduling very
many medications for seniors in a day since
they may not be able to keep up with the
timing.
In all I had a great teacher in my dad, so when
I started out to work with seniors at
Retirement Homes Ottawa I was confident
that I had taken after a great teacher. So when
I practiced the following basics of safe
medication use I knew I was on the right track.

7.  Reminding seniors and their
caregivers to keep an updated list
of medicines that they use at all
times.
 Training any caregiver with ideal
nursing knowledge on how to
administer oral and inject-able
medicines

8.  Also carrying out regular checkups to
ensure that all medications are stored in
their designated locations in seniors’
homes
 I also ensured that all medications were
kept out of children’s reach when they
visited or any other visitor.
 In addition to that I constantly took my
rounds to ensure that different
medications did not end up mixed in one
bottle.

9.  Medicine storage became my concern as I had
to ensure that they were always stored in cool
and dry areas.
 Yet if the medications were stored in the
refrigerator I had to ensure that they remained
separated from items in the fridge.
 And if need arises I had to find out that oral
medications were kept far away from those
that were externally used such as creams.

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

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

12. The basics of safe medication
use were usually important in
Retirement Homes Ottawa in
ensuring that seniors remained
safe and so not knowing them
was no excuse.