Compliance

Compliance

Full compliance with therapy is a large problem in elderly people. The more different kinds of medications a patient takes and the more different dosing schemes, the more likely he/she will make mistakes. A pillbox can solve this problem. Lifelong pharmacological therapy can cause problems like refusing to take the medication or decreasing attention and forgetting to take the drugs.

 

So, individuals with multiple chronic diseases are those least likely to comply with the drug therapy. Causes of non-compliance in general are the high costs of drugs and a decreased perception of benefit. In elderly people, physical causes like visual impairment (not able to read the instructions etc.), bad memory and the presence of adverse effects also play a role.

 

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Physicians should assess a patient’s compliance when