Medication reminders and everyday reminders

What do medication reminders include?

Medication reminders mean a caregiver prompts your parent to take their own medications at the right time and helps with the physical steps they cannot manage, while your parent remains the one who takes them. Pennsylvania's home care rules list "assistance with self-administered medications" as part of personal care, and caregivers must show competency in it before they provide it.

In practice, a caregiver can remind your mother that it is time for her morning pills, bring her the organizer and a glass of water, open a childproof cap she cannot twist, read a label aloud, and write down that she took them. If she refuses or a dose seems to be missing, the caregiver notes it and lets the family know.

What is outside a caregiver's role with medications?

Our caregivers do not administer medications. Non-medical home care does not include deciding doses, crushing pills, placing medication in someone's mouth, giving injections such as insulin, handling feeding-tube medications, or changing what the doctor ordered. Those are skilled tasks for a licensed nurse through a home health agency, or for the person and their family. Setting up medications, such as filling a weekly pill organizer, is something to plan with your parent, a family member, the pharmacist or a home health nurse, and we talk through who will do it at the consultation. Many pharmacies will package medications by day and time on request, which makes reminders much simpler.

If your parent can no longer take medications without someone placing them in their hand and deciding what is due, talk with their doctor. That may be the point where a home health referral, a pharmacy packaging change or more family involvement is needed, and we will tell you so plainly.

After a hospital stay

The days after discharge are when medication schedules change most. Whether your parent is coming home from UPMC Harrisburg, Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Lancaster General or Reading Hospital, the discharge paperwork lists new, stopped and changed medications. The caregiver follows that list for reminders, can pick up new prescriptions so they are in the house, sets old bottles aside for the family to review, and brings the list to follow-up visits. Our page on coming home from the hospital walks through the first week.

Keeping the medication list current

The National Institute on Aging recommends keeping one complete, written list of every prescription, over-the-counter medicine, vitamin and supplement, with the amount and the time each is taken, and bringing it to every appointment. Caregivers help keep that list where everyone can find it, on the refrigerator or in the folder that goes to the doctor, and flag to the family when a bottle on the counter does not match it. Updating the list after a change is for the family or the pharmacist; noticing a mismatch and mentioning it is where a caregiver helps.

Everyday reminders: appointments, fluids, meals and routines

Everyday reminders are the cues that keep a day on track when memory, energy or mood make it easy to lose the thread. They are often as important as the pills.

• Appointments. Keeping a calendar on the refrigerator, reminding your parent the day before and the morning of, and, if the care plan includes it, going along to the appointment and taking notes for the family.
• Fluids. The sense of thirst weakens with age. Caregivers keep a drink within reach, offer water, tea or juice through the day, and note when intake seems low.
• Meals. A reminder that it is lunchtime, or a plate set down, makes the difference for someone who forgets to eat. See Meal Preparation.
• Routines. Getting dressed, a short walk, the evening phone call with a daughter in Philadelphia, putting out the trash on collection day, charging the hearing aids and the phone.

For a person living with early memory loss, a written daily schedule on a whiteboard, the same caregiver at the same time, and a gentle prompt rather than a quiz help a great deal. Our dementia care page explains how we build that routine.

How often can a caregiver give reminders?

Reminders happen during the caregiver's scheduled time in the home, so the visit schedule follows the medication schedule. A morning and an evening visit can cover twice-a-day medications along with breakfast, bathing and dinner. Be aware that very short, single-purpose visits are the hardest to staff reliably, especially in outer counties such as Fulton, Huntingdon or Juniata; pairing reminders with personal care, meals or companionship usually makes the schedule easier to keep.

Starting medication reminders

Call (717) 695-2704. During the in-home consultation we look at the current medication list, how medications are stored and packaged, and the times they are due. The written care plan states which reminders the caregiver gives and what to do if a dose is refused or missing.