Medication Assistance

Medication Assistance

Medication Assistance includes monitoring, reminders and administration for pre-dosed medications.  Caregivers can monitor and report on someone’s success in maintaining their medication routines. This is most common in the early stages of support needs when visits may only be a few times each week.

• Are the right doses missing from the right days on a blisterpack?
• Are doses being missed? Are doses being doubled-up?

If a medication regimen is not being successfully followed then the next steps are reminders or administration assistance.  Caregivers can provide scheduled medication reminders to help people stay safe and in routine. Medication reminders can be provided:

• In-person
• Over the phone
• By family members through a wifi camera with intercom functionality - An internet connected camera with intercom capability which is set up to look at the medication location. Family or friends can use the intercom to call someone into a room and watch them take the medications. This can be a great solution when the person can take the meds independently but can’t remember the times. See our Family Caregivers: Helpful Caregiving Technology

If medication monitoring and reminders are not enough, it is time for help with the actual Medication Administration. Caregivers can give pre-dosed medications which may include:

• Pills in a blisterpack, dosette or labelled container
• Eyedrops
• Eardrops
• Inhalers
• Medicated creams
• Medicated patches
• Suppositories & enemas (in some circumstances this is nurse only)
• Pre-filled syringes for Subq ports

• Reorder low blister pack medications if the pharmacy has payment method on file or notify family of low medication supply for reorder.
• Insulin and Blood sugar monitoring for stable diabetics
• Blood pressure monitoring (non-clinical)

Caregivers cannot ‘dose’ clients

or make decisions about ‘dose intervals’ without specific nursing direction. Caregivers cannot:

• Shake pills out of a bottle
• Adjust an Oxygen flow rate
• Crush or split medications
• Adjust an insulin pen

Medications must be administered on pre-determined schedules. Medications can only be administered on an ‘as needed’ (PRN) basis with specific nursing direction or when a capable client or their authorized representative (often family) is able to request and consent. Some medications must be given on a recurrent schedule within a very narrow window of time each day or relative to the previous dose.

• Make sure your service provider is aware of any time firm medications and is able to provide stable service for that time window.
• Make sure you have a backup plan for emergencies and natural disasters.