Consumer Reports: Avoid These Common Life-threatening or Fatal Medication Errors

By  //  July 27, 2016

mistakes can have serious consequences

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Using a kitchen spoon or teaspoon to measure out a dose of liquid medicine, not the measuring device that came with the drug, often results in inaccurate dosing and leads to problems such as taking too much or too little medication. (Consumer Reports image)

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.

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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.

CLICK HERE to read the complete story on ConsumerReports.com and more information on how to prevent and deal with common medication errors.

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