Do you struggle to get your elderly parent to take their medication? Or perhaps your loved ones simply refuse to take their medicine when they are supposed to? Although taking medication on time is critical for your loved ones, it is a typical occurrence among those in their golden years. If this is the case for your loved ones, do not worry because this article will explore what you can do if your loved ones refuse to take medication.
Begin With a Fruitful Conversation
The first thing you should do is begin with a fruitful conversation with your loved ones. And this means you should avoid telling your loved ones they should eat their medications for their own good. Instead, converse with them and ask them why they are not taking their medicine. Is it because of the taste of their medication? Or perhaps they claim to be in good health and do not see why they should eat their medication? There are many possible reasons why your loved ones refuse to eat their medication on a regular basis, so you need to start a conversation with them and learn their reasons. Once you understand their reason, try to refute their reasons or provide alternate solutions to the issues that they face when eating their medication. By doing so, it deals with the root of their issue with eating medication, therefore making this method effective.
Reduce Their Medications
No one loves to take an overwhelming number of medications. This is the case for your loved ones as well. If they have too much medication to eat, they are very likely to feel irritated, overwhelmed, and unwilling to eat their medication. If this is the case, try to reduce the number of medications by making an appointment with their doctor to see whether some of these prescriptions may be lowered, discontinued, or replaced with a medication that tackles numerous symptoms. Alternatively, you can also enquire about complementary and alternative therapy alternatives to the medicine that they are taking right now.
Associating Meal Time With Medications
What else can you do when your loved ones refuse to take their medication? It is to associate their meal time with medication. This is because associating meal times throughout the day with medication administration will ensure your loved ones will be able to better recall when they should take their medication. In fact, because certain medications must also be taken with food, there are additional advantages to connecting medications around mealtime. At the same time, meal times tend to be a more enjoyable and relaxing time for your loved ones, so they are more likely to be in a better mood to eat their medication. In fact, this is also a great solution if your loved ones find that they do not like the taste of their medication.
Visit the Doctor
If your loved ones have only lately started forgetting or struggling with taking their medication, they may be suffering from some other type of health issue that affected them. For example, some kinds of dementia might impair cognitive performance or cause mood swings, making drug administration challenging for them. Therefore, visit the doctor with your loved ones to ensure they are not suffering from some other types of health issues.
