A Tailored Medication Management Intervention for Older Adults

Almost 70% of older adults experience multimorbidity and medication is often the first intervention used to manage it. In fact, 90% of older adults take at least one medication and 36% take 5 or more, commonly known as polypharmacy. When taken correctly, medication can extend life-expectancy and improve quality of life. However, estimates show 40-75% of community-dwelling older adults are nonadherent, or deviate from their medication regimen. These older adults are at an increased risk of nonadherence because the physical changes associated with multimorbidity including decreased memory, fine motor skills, and visual acuity and because of the complexity polypharmacy adds to a medication routine. Nearly 43% of older adults with polypharmacy take medications that are inappropriate and can cause negative long term physical and cognitive function, which further complicates the mediation management process.

Nonadherence has significant consequences which include increased health care costs, falls, institutionalization, and decreased medication effectiveness, quality of life. In fact, improving medication adherence has been identified as a public health concern by the World Health Organization. Despite this, interventions designed to improve adherence in older adults remain largely ineffective. The majority of interventions are disease or medication specific or are implemented with a "one size fits all" approach (e.g. providing standard pill organizers that may be difficult for some older adults to open). Furthermore, interventions are often implemented in a clinical setting such as doctor's office or hospital and do not consider the unique home environment where medication management typically occurs. Home environments can offer support (i.e. caregiver to set up medications) or barriers (i.e. low lighting that makes medications difficult to see) to medication management. Given the complexity of each older adult's risk factors and home environment, a more tailored, individualized approach must be considered.

Tailored, individualized interventions aimed at remediating the environmental barriers in the home have been successful in improving daily activity performance for older adults. However, this type of intervention has not been tested specifically to improve medication adherence in older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. We propose a tailored, individualized medication management intervention (TIMM) for community-dwelling older adults with multimorbidity and polypharmacy. TIMM is an interdisciplinary, compensatory intervention which consists of: 1) an initial in-home evaluation of medication management ability, individual risk factors, and identification of environmental barriers to independence; 2) a medication review by a pharmacist to address polypharmacy; and 3) tailored intervention by an occupational therapist to improve adherence by reducing barriers to medication management.

We will conduct an equivalency randomized control trial to examine the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary efficacy of TIMM delivered remotely and in-person. The use of telehealth to deliver occupational therapy interventions for older adults has become more widely utilized, especially during the last two years. Remote interventions remove many of the barriers to in-home care including access and cost and have been shown to be an effective delivery method for OT and other medical services for older adults. Participants in the treatment group will receive the intervention delivered remotely, and participants in the waitlist control group will receive the intervention in-person, upon completion of their control period.