Custom-Packaged Pills Cut Confusion

Nov. 16, 2006 (Chicago) -- Anyone whose parents are on multiple medications, listen up! Some simple steps by the pharmacist can ease their confusion and make it more likely they'll take their drugs as instructed.

In a new study, elderly people with heart disease were more likely to stick to complicated medication schedules when the pharmacist gave them their pills in morning, noon, and evening blister packs rather than pill bottles.

A yearlong test of the program shows that it not only increases compliance, but also results in meaningful reductions in blood pressure that can mean fewer heart woes down the road, says Allen J. Taylor, MD, of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., who tested the new program.

Education is also key, he tells WebMD. "Your grandmother isn't going to take her pills if she doesn't know why she needs them."

Compliance Skyrockets

Blood Pressure Drops

The participants were then randomly assigned to either continue with the special program or to go back to the usual way of doing things -- pill bottles and no education materials -- for six more months.

By the end of the study, compliance dropped back to where it had been in the usual-care group. But in the group that continued with the special program, adherence was still a noteworthy 96%.

Most of the participants (91.5%) were taking medications for high blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure -- the top number in a blood pressure reading -- improved in the pharmacy-care group.

For now, the researchers say they only know of a few community-based pharmacies that offer such a comprehensive program.

"This is a major advance," says Gibbons, a heart specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. "Hopefully, the findings will propel more pharmacies to follow."

The study was published online by The Journal of the American Medical Association.