My earlier post on the “Perils of Growing Old” evoked a strong reaction from my father. He felt that failing memory  and poor eyesight which is part of the natural ageing process  is not the sole  reason why old people make mistakes while taking their medication.  It is largely the fault of the   Pharmaceutical companies manufacturing  those medicines.As he grumbled and grumbled about what the problems were, I remembered distinctly while growing up that there were only five tablets I really knew of :

• APC – a big white bitter tasting tablet for colds, fevers and general malaise
• Vit. B Complex – a ghastly smelling yellow ochre tablet
• Mexaform – a smallish sized dirty pink tablet for a runny tummy
• Ledermycin – a white and red capsule( if I remember right) a general antibiotic
• Avil – a tiny white sweetish covered pill for allergies

He rang me up one morning to tell me that it is all THEIR FAULT – They being modern pharmaceutical companies. After his rant, I realised that old people are at risk.

The Hazards of Geriatric Medicine 

• Advances in pharmaceutical
  industry have greatly contributed to longevity and comfort of human life. Today
  there is a specific ‘pill’ for every specific ‘ill’.

• Majority of old aged people have  multiple maladies resulting in multidrug therapy with its inbuilt increasedincidence of noncompliance. This has major side effects and it is nice to know
  that the industry is trying to formulate a single pill approach. Till that
  happens the old people have to face quite a few hazards.

• The various combinations of the prescribed drugs have to be stored separately to avoid double dosing or missing the dose altogether.

• The multiplicity of generics with increasingly tongue twisting names and different trade names adds to ordering difficulty. This coupled with frequent shortages results in non interferes with
  the treatment.

• The crinkled metallic wrappers with microscopic lettering and similar size and markings on the strips for different drugs makes it difficult to identify the drug to be taken in especially failing
  light and necessitates use of magnifying glass

• As you come to the end of the
  strip there is no visible drug name and the tablet has to be wasted.

• The drugs
  supplied have different strengths that require the tablet to be halved or
  quartered; a difficult task if the tablet is of very small size. An old time ‘supari’ nut cracker is very useful for this purpose.

• While unwrapping, a tablet may slip out and then it becomes difficult to identify it as different drug tablets may have same colour,size and shape.

p.s. I have not only reproduced his entry in a different font but also increased the size so that it will be easier for him to read!