Healthcare Literacy Issues
Understand Your Medications Including Names and Action
If your healthcare practitioner has prescribed something it is specific to your needs. Know what it is and why you are taking it.
Healthcare literacy is an important issue affecting health care today. It is not just the ability to read and write, but the ability to comprehend both verbal and written instructions and information about your health that you may be given to read, sign or comply with.
Patient Responsibilities
You have responsibilities as a patient and just one of them is to ask questions if you don't understand something. However, the real problem begins when you don't know that you don't understand something. This is healthcare illiteracy in action. As an example, it affects more than half of all Americans regardless of their education and social/economic status.
Understanding your medications is just one aspect of your responsibilities as a patient. It can have a profound affect on your health status and outcomes. Television commercials bombard viewers with the newest medications for all sorts of ailments from headaches to constipation, to cancer, to impotence, and the list goes on and on. As a disclaimer, they all tell you about all of the possible side effects each drug can cause, but encourage you to get your doctor to prescribe the medication for you.
Understanding the side effects of a medication is very important, but even more important is the fact that you need to know the names of your medications, how take them, and what they are for.
An Almost Fatal Example...
A friend's mother-in-law (whom we'll call Mary) was prescribed Lanoxin (aka Digoxin or digitalis) for mild congestive heart failure. Her particular dose is a small little white pill. Lanoxin basically works to slow and regulate the heart rate so that the heart pumps more effectively and efficiently. It is taken once a day and sometimes only every other day as it is potent and can reach toxic levels quickly.
One day Mary was having lunch with a friend (whom we'll call Georgia) who suffers from angina (chest pains) for which she takes nitroglycerin tablets. Her pills are also small white tablets. Nitroglycerine works to dilate the blood vessels to increase the oxygen flow to the heart.
Neither woman knew the name of her medication. They each only know they take a "heart pill" because they "have spells." While at lunch, Georgia began to have "a spell" of angina and she quickly took her nitroglycerin. Mary asked Georgia why she was taking her heart pill now, because she only takes her heart pills each morning. Georgia told Mary that the doctor told her to take them only if she has "a spell," so she takes one every 5 minutes if she has chest pains. After three pills, if she still has pain, she has to call 911, but usually one or two of them do the trick.
Mary's "spells" aren't exactly chest pains, she often gets short of breath and fatigued easily, but now she doesn't understand why she has to take one pill everyday if she isn't having "a spell." She made a mental note to ask her doctor about this.
The next day, Mary experienced some chest pains. She's never had them before, and after she sat and rested for a few minutes, they still didn't go away. The she remembered that Georgia took her little white heart pill and it helped. So Mary found her pills and took one. After a few minutes the pain was gone, but about an hour later it returned and so she took another of her little white heart pills. Ten minutes later she was still having chest pains so she took another pill. After ten more minutes she was still having some pain and she remembered that Georgia said she was supposed to call 911 if the third pill wasn't helping, so she called 911.
Mary was able to tell the paramedics that she had taken 3 heart pills in the last couple of hours for her chest pain. The paramedic asked her if it was nitroglycerin and Mary said "yes." At the hospital, her heart rate was only about 25 beats/minute and very irregular. Her daughter arrived and in a conversation with the ER doctor, it was discovered that Mary takes Lanoxin. She has never taken nitroglycerin and does not have any. They finally discover that Mary has taken four Lanoxin tablets this day and appropriate treatment was begun. It was very touch and go for awhile and Mary almost died. She was pretty sick from the toxic results of her overdose, but she did recover. After her episode, Mary realized that not all "heart pills" or "spells" are the same.
Prescriptions Are Individualized
It is vital to know what your medications are and why you are taking them. If a friend takes the same medication in a different manner, ask your health care practitioner about it. Don't ever self medicate.
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