Don: Starting and changing medicines – Different feelings about starting a medicine
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Don
Male
Age at interview: 70
Number of medicines: 5
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Don’s healthcare providers suspect that he has Parkinson’s disease. He hopes he can be treated for the condition soon, whatever the eventual diagnosis.
And I'm looking forward to something to treat my Parkinson's, which I'm pretty convinced now that I have, because I am finding that now it's quite debilitating. It's affecting my speech and my physical levels are really rock bottom, but I still chair two Boards and I'm determined to continue that, even though I'm finding the preparation for that work, particularly the Shire Council Board that I chair, there's a lot of work involved and I've lost the motor dexterity ... fine motor ... in my left hand, fairly significantly. So the keyboarding, as I said, is really so slow! But I keep at it, make an error every second word or whatever, but I check it all out and ... so I'm determined, while I can, to keep on.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.