We have caregivers with my 93 year old mom 80% of the day and during the time she is to take her meds. She refuses to allow the caregivers to fill her weekly pill box insisting they do not know what they are doing. Any mention of the meds and she goes ballistic. I have offered to fill it for her once a week and she told me I am not to touch her "D...medicine." She does have moments of confusion, but overall is still fairly sharp but unreasonable. She will suddenly wake from a nap and move meds around in the box and get her days all out of order. We have recorded this to show her and she insists we are staging that. I am at a loss as to what to do.
I just checked and there are several companies that do this CVS is one of them.
Is your mother considered competent or not?
If this is becoming an emergency, it should be possible to "divert" her meds into safe hands following their collection from the pharmacy (I assume your mother doesn't pick them up herself?). But it's not straightforward, because if your mother has mental capacity then handling and taking medications isn't something you can just stop her doing.
You could perhaps ask her doctor to read her the Riot Act about it; you could download official Best Practice Guidelines on the Safe Storage and Handling of Medications; and perhaps she'll take advice better from a "higher authority."
If your mother were more confused I'd suggest filling her pill box with placebos, but it doesn't sound as if you'll get away with that.
Does she know and understand what each med is for? Some elders worry that meds may have bad side effects or will hurt them somehow. My grandmother was similar, and we had to explain to her what each med was for and how much per day. Otherwise she was nervous about how they would affect her.
Maybe each morning she can sit down with the caregiver and they can set out that day's, and that day's ONLY, meds (assuming the caregiver is legally allowed to do so). Repeat every morning. That way she feels she's controlling it and the caregiver is just the extra set of eyes to make sure it's correct.
Before reading about this solution, I was thinking that you could let your mom do her thing with her meds BUT when she is going to take them, you or a caregiver needs to go over them with her. Have an up-to-date list of what she takes, how much, what it looks like, etc. to make sure everything is correct.
Although I am in Canada, so this may not apply in the US, it was not at all an issue to have his prescription renewal dates matched. We have more recently done this for my former mil and the pharmacy delivers.
I understand about the higher authority attitude, but perhaps the pharmacist could have a chat with her about the importance of taking the medications as prescribed? Perhaps even threatening to take some away if she is not taking them as ordered? I know a pharmacist does not have this authority, but a threat to talk to her doctor about it may help.
When did she last have an RX review with her doctor and pharmacist?
And even though this has been her personality for a long time, it maybe time for a neurological assessment. It does not make sense to pay for Rx and not take them properly.
I expect once she wins the battle there will be no cause to fight anymore.
Further, if mistakes are made, how serious are the repercussions? Do you know why she doesn’t want to take them?
You may be better off saying, “okay, you’re the one who’ll be sick (or unwell or whatever) if you don’t accept our help.”
I think it’s a good thing that she’s cognizant of her medications. My mother doesn’t even notice if she’s dropped some of her pills that I’ve counted out to her. Nor does she know which pill does what.
She also is mostly competent. She just doesn’t care to know about her medication. When her doctor and I discuss them, she lets it go right over her head and it’s like pulling teeth to get her to respond to questions about how they are affecting her.
Good luck.
Charlotte
The only pills she takes that are critical are 2 diabetes meds that I notice he plays with randomly so I’m not sure “critical” is the right word for them.