Features of adherance to medical regimes

This study was conucted on a sample of elderly patients (over 65 years old), who were prescribed at least 3 different medicines. Before this study, docters thought that if these elderly patients not adhere to the prescription, it was down to the consequence of confusion or forgetulness due to their age.

Lowe and Raynor found that 36% admitted not sticking to their prescribed medication. However, the majority who reported not taking their prescribed medication did so intentionally. The reasons for this include: unpleasent side effects, nasty taste, felt it was not working etc. Lowe and Raynor says that elderly patients make a cost benefit analysis, and that members of the medical profession should not assume that just because someone who fails to take medicine is elderly, the behaviour is unintentional ie. a mistake.

Watt showed that with a little thought and inventiveness can improve adherance. Watt focused on the issue of childhood asthma. The experimenters replaced a standard children's inhaler with a "funhaler" which was an inhaler with an integrated spinner and whistle. The idea was that children were rewarded for deep inhaling by the functioning of the spinner and the whistle. 

The researchers found that a trial with the  the funhaler resulted in better parental adherance (giving medication on a regular basis) and that the children themselves were more likely to take the requisite number of breaths using the funhaler, than a normal inhaler. It found this by parental report, and by physiological means of calculating the volume of air inhaled by the child.