Monitoring Elder Compliance and Response

This is a field-tested open learning resource for self-study by the community nurse which can be used either on an entirely self-learning basis, or as a module in a course in community nursing. It's focus is on the challenge of improving and monitoring elder compliance with medication regimes.

---

A great deal of the community nurse's time is taken up with elderly patients. As the number of elderly people increases, and as the focus of care shifts away from the hospital towards the community, the emphasis will increase. A substantial part of the community nurse's role is to monitor the effects of medication prescribed by the general practitioner or hospital consultant. This text is designed to equip nurses with the pharmacological knowledge they need and it provides an understanding of methods for promoting and monitoring compliance. This is a field-tested open learning resource for self-study by the community nurse which can be used either on an entirely self-learning basis, or as a module in a course in community nursing. The book's focus is on the challenge of improving and monitoring elder compliance with medication regimes.
The book is divided into eight parts and aims to assist the nurse to: examine his/her present level of knowledge in selected areas of pharmacology; identify areas where this knowledge is deficient and address these; design a medication recording and surveillance tool; implement the tool designed to monitor medication regimes of selected patients over a period of six weeks; estimate the prevalence of non-compliance with medication regimes and address the reasons for this anomaly in the medication surveillance group of patients; devise remedial strategies and employ these in practice, in an effort to reduce non-compliance; and examine compliance theory and judge the success or otherwise of measures taken to ensure compliance. The nurse should also learn how to construct a non-compliance identification tool for use by community nurses to identify patients who are having problems with compliance to medication regimes; and how to collaborate with the GP and community pharmacist over local prescribing and dispensing practices.