Consumer Reports: Avoid These Common Life-threatening or Fatal Medication Errors
By Steve Mitchell // July 27, 2016
mistakes can have serious consequences
CONSUMER REPORTS — Have you ever forgotten to take your blood pressure drug? Or grabbed a teaspoon from a kitchen drawer to measure liquid medication?
Those are two examples of medication errors that are all too easy to make.
And Americans make drug mistakes a lot—more than 500,000 times a year, according to the Institute of Medicine.
As simple as those mistakes sound, they can have serious consequences: At least 90,000 life-threatening or fatal events in this country occur each year as a result of medication errors people make at home.
Medication mistakes can affect anyone, but older people face particular risks, says Barbara Young, Pharm.D., at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.
That’s because seniors often take multiple medications, so there’s more opportunity for a mistake.
Here are six common drug mistakes people make at home—and strategies to avoid them.
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