Let’s look at how a caregiver approaches the pharmacist with a concern about a medicine their partner is taking.
Be prepared to respond to questions.
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This scenario was based on a real life situation. The pharmacist agreed to look into the medication side effects for the wife and got back to her. It turns out that there is a very small chance – in less than 1 in 1000 patients – that memory loss can occur. And this side effect can reverse once you stop taking the medicine. There is also evidence that this cholesterol lowering medicine can help with brain function. This is still being studied. Reminder: Don’t change your medicines before talking to your doctor.
In this real life scenario, by the time the pharmacist had finished the investigation, the patient saw several specialists for the side effects and two other medicines were prescribed. This was a negative prescribing cascade that, when discovered, saved the patient $4000 in medicine costs just by changing the cholesterol lowering medicine.
This is why it’s important to look at the whole medication list and the whole patient.