Jan: Routines with multiple medicines – Establishing effective medication routines
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Jan
Female
Age at interview: Undisclosed
Number of medicines: 15
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Jan’s medicines were introduced individually over time, which made it easier for her to maintain a routine and feel ok about her health.
But fortunately, I think, most of the time, it isn't something where you wake up one morning and you've got to start doing it. For me, at least, and I think for a lot of people, it would be a matter of just gradually adding to the regimen. So, you start off taking a couple of things and then you're taking three or four. In fact, I was quite shocked, filling out a form with my doctor for a referral to somebody and she'd put down my ... they had to be just a single word description of my state of health and she wrote ‘Fair’. And I was quite shocked! I would have thought it would have been ‘Good’, not ‘Excellent’! She said, ‘No! I think “Fair” is a fair description of your state of health.’ And that's sort of come about gradually, as I've got older.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.