Glenn: Starting and changing medicines – Complex medication regimes
Listen to patients and health professionals speak about their experience with taking multiple medicines.
Glenn
Male
Age at interview: 50
Number of medicines: 6
Cultural background: Anglo-Australian
Glenn finds that he can accommodate adding short-term medicines into his usual regimen if they can be taken at the same time. Otherwise, he is likely to forget to take a short-term medicine.
It depends on whether the medication has to be taken at approximately the same time that I take my other medications, or if it's got to be taken at a completely different time. It then throws a spanner in the works. If it can work in when I'm taking my others, that's usually not an issue. But if it has to be taken, say, at three o'clock in the afternoon when I don't take a medication, chances are I won't remember. Because I have enough trouble remembering to take ones that I take every day for the past four years. Introducing something new is very, very difficult.
The Living with multiple medicines project was developed in collaboration with Healthtalk Australia.