How do cognitive status, deficit awareness, and medication management skills relate to actual medication adherence in older adults with Alzheimer's disease?
Caregivers accurately assess medication management abilities in Alzheimer's patients, but some of their strategies to ensure adherence are ineffective.
This study examined the relationship between patients' cognitive status, deficit awareness, medication management skills, and actual medication adherence. Twenty-seven persons with Alzheimer's disease and 20 healthy controls were evaluated for their predicted and objective performance on tasks related to medication management. Caregivers were also evaluated for their prediction of the care recipient's management abilities. A pill count was taken at the initial interview and 30 days later. MMSE and deficit awareness were related to amount of help received from a family member, suggesting that caregivers tend to accurately assess their relatives' medication management abilities. Adherence rates were acceptable, but some intervention strategies selected by caregivers were not effective in assuring adequate adherence. Additional study is needed to determine the effectiveness of various strategies adopted by informal caregivers.
Cotrell et al. (Tue,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: