My Mum, the reason I started offering these cards for sale
The key to controlling your Parkinson's Disease is by taking your Carbidopa / Levodopa correctly and on time
Parkinson’s disorders occurs due to a lack of dopamine levels in the brain, taking your Carbidopa/Levodopa medication correctly and on time helps to manage these symptoms.
Without proper Parkinson’s medication adherence, the four key symptoms of Parkinson’s occure, which are slowness of movement, tremors, rigidity and postural instability. When your level of medicine goes down, you may freeze and may fall.
If you are someone with Parkinson’s or a caregiver for someone with Parkinson’s like me, then the key is to make taking your daily Carbidopa/Levodopa medications as easy and straightforward as possible. As the disease progresses it becomes harder and harder for the person with Parkinson’s to remember when and if they’ve even taken their medications. Since my Mum had Parkinson’s I needed a full proof way to make it easy for her to take her medications correctly and on time during the day and a way that I could make sure that she was taking her medications during the day.
How my mother uses these cards to take her medications on time
This is my wonderful mother, her name is Margaret. Several years ago she developed Parkinson’s and it’s progressed to the point where she has a hard time remembering to take her meds on time.
Mum’s problem isn’t that she needs to take a lot of medications each time period, but that she needs to take them at very specific times of the day, ie. 7am, 11am, 3pm and 7pm. Without the exact amount of medication in her system during the day she’ll develop the symptoms that you associate with Parkinson’s, including tremors and loss of balance and we don’t want that.
These cards make my mum more confident and independent. At a glance the card reminds her when she needs to take her medication and which med to take. I can also quickly check to see that the medication was taken. I assemble mum’s card on Saturday each week and it literally takes me only a few minutes to do. Since her medications rarely change I could actually do 2 or 3 weeks of cards at one time if I wanted to, but I enjoy the time I spend with my mother.
Let me show you what I do for my mother’s card.
First I’ll fill my mother’s blister card. As previously mentioned she doesn’t have to take a lot of medications each time, but the time that she takes them is crucial.(Depending on size, each blister can hold up to 5 – 6 medications)
Using a black marker I write in large letters the times on each blister when that medication should be taken during the day. The card sits on her coffee table all day and is a constant reminder of when to take her medications especially when no one else is at home.
The foil/paper blisters are always easy to open normally. With my mothers Parkinson’s she’s not as dexterous any more so I find that placing a little slit in the paper with a kitchen knife makes it even easier for her to open. Certainly easier and more secure than using a plastic pill box.
My Mum easily accessing her medications.
It’s easy because the cards are marked with the day of the week and the time period of the day.
It’s Saturday, and the finished card ready to place on my mum’s coffee table for the following week. As a Caregiver, I have the peace of mind knowing that my mother has a securely filled and sealed multi-med blister card that I assembled.
I was part of the original marketing team that brought these multi-med blister cards to market, but they were only sold to pharmacists. These cards are so easy to assemble and use that I knew they would be perfect for caregivers and seniors. I know what you’re thinking, how about a plastic pill box. Well trying to open the hard plastic lid of a plastic pill box with shaky hands can lead to a falling pill box catastrophe. When using the old plastic pill boxes my mother was always worried about taking her medications on time and correctly, these cards take that worry away.
