Seniors who are on a regimen of medications need to take those medications regularly. However, sometimes these people refuse to take the meds for one reason or another. That can make your plans for senior care in Los Angeles a bit difficult.
So, what is a caregiver to do in a situation like this? Fortunately, there are ways to handle this situation in a calm and relaxed way. What you need to realize is that their refusal to take medication is an attempt to communicate something.
You should try to see the situation from their angle and try to calmly and rationally talk to them rather than escalating the situation.
Stay Positive and Calm
The last thing you would want to do in a situation like this is to raise tensions. That is why it is essential for you to keep your cool and to talk in a calm and positive manner. Most people tend to relax and calm down when talked to in a calm manner. It also helps if you treat your senior as an equal and not as someone to command and control.
If you try to force something on your senior, they might just become even more adamant that it is something they want.
Try to Figure Out How They Feel
In a heated argument, people can say a lot of hurtful things that they don’t necessarily mean. If that happens to you, try to look past the words they said, and figure out where these words are coming from. What emotions are driving these angry words? Is it fear? Talk to them about emotions and you may find that the true reason is revealed in this conversation.
Ask Them about Side Effects
One reason why they are refusing medication may simply be side effects. If they won’t talk to you about it, consult the packaging to see what kind of side effects their medication can produce. Sometimes these side effects can be quite severe and unpleasant to the point that the seniors refuse to take them.
Once you are familiar with the side effects, monitor your senior after they have taken the medication to see if you can identify these side effects in them. If you do, consult their doctor to change their therapy to something with fewer or no side effects.
Change the Intake Method
It is also possible that the medication itself is the problem. Some pills are quite large and hard to swallow. In other cases, some medication is so bitter that it is hard to take, and the bad taste lingers for a long time. It is somewhat understandable why someone would refuse to take it.
Fortunately, most medications come in several different forms. You can talk to the doctors or pharmacists about different intake methods and whether the effects change when you take the medication in a different form.
Talk to the Doctor
If nothing else helps, consider taking them to the doctor in order to discuss this refusal with them. The doctor can explain to them why these medications are important and what the implications of not taking them are.
It may be that your senior doesn’t consider you an authority in the field of medicine and will only take advice and orders of doctors when it comes to medication.
Talking your senior into taking some medication they don’t want can be tricky, but with enough patience, you can do it. It is important that you don’t force anything on them, but rather try to explain why they need it. Keep them involved in the conversation and you should be able to persuade them that it is the best thing for them.
