Patients Can't Recall Their Medications To Tell Doctors

I can tell you from experience, my mother could not name the drugs she was taking and she was not taking them as prescribed. I investigated this when her behavior first started to change and show signs of dementia. Why is this important? Is my belief that if my mother had been taking her hypertension drugs as prescribed she would be much healthier today and the onset and development of her Alzheimer's might have been delayed.

clipped from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071011125323.htm New research from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has found that nearly 50 percent of patients taking antihypertensive drugs in three community health centers were unable to accurately name a single one of their medications listed in their medical chart. That number climbed to 65 percent for patients with low health literacy.

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Bob DeMarco is an Alzheimer's caregiver and editor of the Alzheimer's Reading Room. The Alzheimer's Reading Room is the number one website on the Internet for advice and insight into Alzheimer's disease. Bob taught at the University of Georgia, was an executive at Bear Stearns, the CEO of IP Group, and is a mentor. He has written more than 700 articles with more than 18,000 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.

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