From Mr H. R. Durrant, MRPharmS
SIR,-The December 4, 1999, issue of The Journal has just arrived. A report therein on dealing with non-compliance (p922) interests me. I am 85 years of age and my short-term memory is awful. It is not too bad for what it seems to think is importamt, but taking tablets does not appear to be included in this category.
I am on a permanent treatment which requires a tablet to be taken three times a day, preferably at eight-hour intervals. I am motivated, because I realise the importance of taking the tablets regularly, prefereably at intervals as close as practicable to eight hourly.
Morning and evening tablets are reminded by breakfast and approaching bed-time, but nothing reminds me of the afternoon tablet. I shall, in future, take it with lunch, even if it upsets the interval. Even so, late in the day, I wonder whether I did take the previous dose. I sometimes remember clearly that it was taken. But am I remembering today, or yesterday? I have fixed this. Whan I start a new strip of tablets I number them serially 1, 2, and 3. Then I can see whether I have taken the previous tablet. Usually, but not always, I have taken it.
I would recommend that pharmacists suggest to patients on a regular schedule that they think about this marking of strips of tablets. A chinagraph pencil marks the strips easily.
I wonder why the august speakers at the seminar reported on December 4 did not mention the problems of patients who want to take their medicine regularly but are let down by their memories. Surely they are as deserving of at least as much sympathy as members of the "awkward squad". Or as it because the speaker could not think of any good suggestions?
Harold R. Durrant
Waverley, Pretoria, South Africa