Pilot Program Helps Older Adults With Dementia Manage Meds

A Cornell University-led pilot program aims to support older adults living alone and diagnosed with mild dementia to take important medications safely, reports the Cornell Chronicle . Using a $250,000 U.S. National Institutes of Health grant, Cornell Professor Rana Zadeh and partners will launch the Home Opioid Prescription Education and Smart Storage (HOPES) program in two upstate New York counties near Cornell's Ithaca campus. The initiative will supply 40 residents of Tompkins and Cortland counties with assistive medication organizers and training to help them plan, structure, and take medications as prescribed. Zadeh said assistive medication organizers and support for medication management are not currently covered by health insurance for all populations in critical need, and would be unaffordable for many older adults living at home. HOPES will help embed the pill organizers into participants' daily lives and train users and their caregivers on how to operate them and on medication safety. "If we can utilize this integrative program to help people manage their medication schedules better, they will be able to remain at home longer, and unnecessary hospitalizations may be prevented," said Deb Parker Traunstein with the Visiting Nurse Service of Ithaca and Tompkins County, which helped develop HOPES.