A Place for Mom's Family

So often in talking with families, their "trusted family physician" may not be managing their parents care too well.  I have even heard of MDs starting AZ durgs out of state, over the phone for patients without a current visit.  One of my families referred to her parents medical regimen as "Drug Soup". Frequently these seniors have so many specialist and so many prescriptions--then people wonder why mom is showing signs of dementia when 6 of the 10 drugs she is taking are centrally acting drugs all of which can affect the brain.  Then you add in a UTI and a course of Cipro or Floxin and mom is over the edge and noone knows why!  Hopefully, with the greying of America we will find more MDs entering the field of geriatric medicine.

 I'm so happy to see this post up Carolyn. I agree that when it comes to specialized fields such as AZ it's difficult to find a reputable Dr.

I was fortunate, through the grief of awakening my ailing father to the realization that my mother needed this type of care, and urged him to contact the local Alzheimer Chapter of our area to seek for this type of help. They were very quick to repsond to his plea and frustration and recommended a Dr in the area who services 3 counties or more and rotates his service montly in each area. Then the problem came about of her family doctor not knowing what the AZ Dr was prescribing and vice versa mainly due to the fact that my father was dealing with his own major health issues at the time as well and not communicating to each of them.

I intervened when I saw that this was becoming a major problem by setting up a "Record of Medicines" on my home computer with all the prescriptions and dosages that each doctor was prescribing and when the medicines were prescribe and also the reasons why they were being prescribed.

So now when I take mother to her different doctor's appointment, I take this print out along with the medications and they have a clear and precise evaluation of my Mother's medicine history. Now I can evaluate and discuss with each doctor when they want to change or prescribe more medicines for certain situations.