You usually wear pants.. and also never forget to brush your teeth... Then why do you forget your medicine?
Patients struggling with adhering to their medicine schedule always have a reason for it. Always. There are lots of reasons why people neglect to take their medicine properly. The most common reason is that they just forget, which seems innocent enough. Through the years we all would have heard every reason, rationalization or excuse in the book for being noncompliant.
But to get maximum benefit from medications, it is important to take them exactly as prescribed by the doctor. In fact, chances of better health outcomes improves when we take our medications as directed.
Lets understand why people don't take their medicines-
Ø They don't know why they need the drug
Ø They don't know how and when to take the drug
Ø They don't know how to store the drug
Ø They don't know what might happen if they don't take the drug as prescribed
Hence it's very important to create awareness among patients as to why a medicine is prescribed. Lets categorize the work of medicine into 4 types:
Ø Medicine to prevent you from becoming unwell - e.g. A vaccination of Polio protects against Polio disease.
Ø Medicine to treat the symptoms of your condition - e.g. A painkiller for toothache
Ø Medicine to control your condition - e.g. In hypertension you need medicine to control your blood pressure , in diabetes you need medicine to control your sugar level
Ø Medicine can cure your condition - e.g. An antibiotic to treat certain infections.
So now that we know the role of medicine, it's important to make patients aware that-
Ø Medicine should be taken on time as prescribed by doctor
Ø Any dose adjustment should be first discussed with doctor.
Ø Use of lower doses can lead to a lack of benefit.
Ø Use of higher-than-prescribed doses increases the risk of adverse effects.
Hence, it's extremely important that you take medicine as prescribed by your doctor. If you are Diabetic, Hypertensive or suffer from any other chronic disease it's very important to include your medicine schedule in your daily routine habits.
So people, Forgetting your medicine.. should not be an option now!
Use MedmentApp to get timely reminders to take your medicines and also to understand about your medicine and its importance.
