Safety Considerations in the Older Adult

1. Strategies to Promote Safety with Medication Delivery in Older Adults

“Promoting Drug Safety in Older Adults,” is a research article by Aschenbrenner (2018) illustrating
the need to ensure safety and quality medication among the elderly population. Aschenbrenner
(2018) found that medication errors resulting from faulty delivery accounts for 7,000 deaths
annually among the geriatrics. Medication errors result from poor delivery techniques can be
prevented through improved communication with both the doctors and patients and improving and
standardizing the medication labeling and other drug-related information. 

Improved communication: The communication among the doctors, nurses and patient will help to
promote safety and medication delivery in older adults by ensuring that right medicines are
administered at the right time via the right root. The nurses should always consult the pharmacists if
they are not sure about the root of drug delivery (Aschenbrenner, 2018).

Improving and standardizing the medication labeling and other drug-related information. The
medicines prescribed to the patients should be clearly indicated in the treatment sheet with all
information about dosage, frequency and the duration. The nurse should always confirm that the
drug being administered to the elderly patient is the one that has been indicated in the treatment
sheet. The nurse should always confirm the medications with similar names or similar packaging
before administering (Aschenbrenner, 2018).  

2. Safety Issues of the Older Adults with Psychological Problems

i. Impact to the older adult

Patient with psychological problems are likely to forget about their medication hence need to have
someone around to take care of their medication. The patients with psychological challenges are
also likely to develop negative attitude about their medication hence may not take their medicines
as prescribed, this will have poor treatment outcomes (Kliger et al., 2009).  Psychotic patients may
also take their medications inappropriately if left alone hence need to have someone to monitor
them to ensure that right medication and right doses are taken at the right time through the right
route (Dorcas, 2018). 

ii. Response of the Older Adult to the Issue

The older adults are likely to have mental challenges due to neural degeneration and old age. The
most common mental challenge the older adults are likely to develop is dementia, schizophrenia and
don’t care attitude (Geofrey, 2018). As such, they are likely to forget to take their medication as
prescribed hence the need to be closely monitored to ensure safety drug use to improve their
health. It is recommended that older adults with psychological challenges should be taken to
community nursing home where their medical needs can be appropriately handled rather than
managing their conditions at home (Aschenbrenner, 2018). The caregiver managing the older adults’
patients with mental challenges should ensure that the doctor knows about all the medicines being
taken by the patients for appropriate management plan (Kliger et al., 2009). 

iii. Role of the Client, Nurse, and Caregiver Related to the Issue

The nurse can answer most questions about the prescription and over-the-counter drugs hence they
should be trusted by the medicines to be administered to the older adult patients (Kliger et al.,
2009). The nurse should ensure that caretaker have understood all the instruction concerning
medicine administration before discharging patient from nursing home or hospital to home. The
caretaker must ensure that medicines are given to the older patient as instructed to ensure
compliance and safety of the patient (Dorcas, 2018). 

References

Aschenbrenner, D. S. (2018). Promoting drug safety in older adults. AJN, American Journal of

Nursing, 118(7), 23-24. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.naj.0000541430.74336.7b  (Links to an external
site.)

Dorcas, J. (2018). Promoting a wider understanding of elderly needs. Elderly Care, 8(3), 6-

11. https://doi.org/10.7748/eldc.8.3.6.s13 (Links to an external site.)

Geofrey, S. (2018). Increase in potentially inappropriate medicines use seen in all older adults, study
results suggest. Journal of Clinical Pharmacy Practice, 14(2), 15-
18. https://doi.org/10.1211/cp.2018.20204837 (Links to an external site.)

Kliger, J., Blegen, M. A., & O’Neil, E. (2009). Empowering frontline nurses: A structured intervention
enables nurses to improve medication administration accuracy. The Joint Commission Journal on
Quality and Patient Safety, 35(12), 64-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/s1553-7250(19)35085-1 (Links to
an external site.)