Drugs have powerful effects on the elderly and since often the elderly are required to consume varied meds in clusters, they are particularly vulnerable to harmful side effects. Moreover, they need nutritional support to help fortify their vital organs and brain and bones from such side effects. Note also that the elderly often have dental problems and so they desperately need supplemental nutrients in liquid forms since their mouths cannot chew tablets. Therefore, I'd like to know more about supplement nutrition programs and research about this.
If you have a specific situation in mind about a person you are taking care of, I assume you've talked about this with the doctor. What have you learned?
I would love to be able to get a multivitamin that is small in size for Mom. Right now we give her children's chewables, but she can just handle 1 a day. Adult vitamins are too large in size for her. We've tried liquid vitamins but had issues with caregivers not handling it properly.
Every pharmaceutical manufacturers has their own formula, thus one has to search around to find the right manufacturer where a patient can easily take the pill with minor side effects.
I have the above issues with pills, and surprising just last year found out my Mom had the same problem.... we were surprised to find that we both had narrowed down the pills to just manufacturers that worked the best for us :)
I agree with Ferris above, there are no supplements that can erase the side effects. In fact, the supplements have "fillers", "binders", and "coatings" on their pills and even in liquid form.
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