Child-Resistant Containers for the Elderly?

Abstract

WITH the introduction of child-resistant medication containers, the geriatric patient has suffered another setback in an already poor record of medication compliance. Most physicians, while applauding the remarkable decrease in child poisonings resulting from safety closure devices, are not aware of the burden that child-resistant medication containers has imposed on the elderly. Nor are they aware of methods to correct the problem. Elderly patients, however, are keenly aware of the problems of child-resistant medication containers but are ignorant about methods to overcome the difficulty in opening and closing them. Since medication is the basis of therapeutic and symptomatic intervention in many acute and chronic diseases of the elderly, physicians must take into consideration (1) the compliance barrier imposed by child-resistant medication containers to the geriatric patient, (2) the lack of awareness on the part of the patient about ways to obtain non-child-resistant containers, and (3) the prescribing methods to ensure