As a person ages, it is more and more likely that he or she will be issued prescription medications. Elderly men and women are often taking many pills for various health issues as they enter into their 70s and 80s. While these medications can ascribe comfort and improved health, there are many dangers if a person abuses the proscribed amount. As the amount of meds increases, a senior can creep closer and closer to danger. According to the Nursing Home Abuse Center, the three biggest killers of senior citizens are cancer, heart disease, and stroke. All of these conditions involve many medications for prevention or comfort. As well, elderly persons are commonly diagnosed with illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, diabetes, or high blood pressure; all of these conditions involve a multiplicity of medicines.
The American Association of Retired Persons has determined that men and woman over 75 take an average of 11 different drugs within a year. As well, 90 percent of all seniors over 65 take some form of medication daily, and 50 percent of these people take over five drugs. Unfortunately, excess medication, or mixing medications, can have serious penalties. Many seniors experience side-effects, medical issues, or even fatality from poor discretion when taking a plethora of pills.
Medication management is one of the primary reasons that seniors are not able to live on their own any longer, and need full-time assistance. It is easy for many elderly people to get confused, and overdose on one medication or take two prescriptions simultaneously that are not supposed to mix. As well, they may forget what time a pill is supposed to be swallowed, and what days it is supposed to be taken on. All of these concerns have led to the popularity of full-time care facilities for seniors. Some drugs can affect cognitive capacity, and may prevent a senior from driving or being able to manage life alone.
At a nursing home, it is the employee's job to monitor the medications that patients are taking. This responsibility should be taken seriously, and in many nursing homes, nurses run organized and tight operations and issue the proper pills to keep their patients happy and healthy. However, this is not always the case. In some understaffed nursing homes, employees will mistakenly swap medications, and issue the wrong prescriptions to the wrong individual. The ramifications of this careless mistake can be astronomical.
In other cases, nursing homes are not as unintentional in their mistakes. Some nursing home staff will overmedicate their patients out of frustration, or will give them drugs they have not been proscribed intentionally. This can result in serious chemical reactions and dangers to the client's health; the Food and Drug Administration states that 15,000 nursing home patients die due to over-medications each year. Sources say that one in every four seniors is given un-proscribed anti-psychotic drugs to regulate their behavior and make them easier for staff to manage.
An observant for the Center for Medicare Advocacy says that this is one way that a nursing home can restrain patients without being found out. While physically restraining a senior is apparent, chemically restraining him or her is not. An example is a nursing home in Northern California, where an irate nurse forced her patients to consume anti-psychotic drugs when they became exasperating. Three of her patients passed away as a result of this abusive behavior. If someone you love has been over-medicated in a nursing home, you need to contact a lawyer immediately. Watch for sudden changes in your senior's physical and mental capacities. If you witness an odd change in behavior, it could be due to over-medication. It is very important that you expose the injustice of this abuse and avoid putting more seniors in danger.