Tag: non-compliance

Medical Minimizer or Medical Maximizer: which one are you?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I’ve been thinking lately about why so many heart patients don’t seem to follow their doctor’s advice (because that’s the specific topic I was invited to speak on during the annual Canadian Women’s Heart Health Summit being held in beautiful Vancouver, BC).

I’m pretty sure I was invited to speak because I’ve been harping on about the patronizing term “non-compliant” for years.  This is how some physicians label patients who are not advice-followers. I’m not a physician, so I tend to rely on what others far above my pay grade offer as suggestions to replace that cringe-worthy term. See also: First, There was Compliance. Then, Adherence. Now, Concordance.

No matter what you call it, researchers tell us that there are several commonly reported reasons that many patients don’t follow ‘doctor’s orders’. This week, I learned about another reason:         .

Continue reading “Medical Minimizer or Medical Maximizer: which one are you?” →

Behaviour change: if it’s so ‘easy’, why do so many studies show it won’t last?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Many centuries ago, while I was a volunteer run leader at our local YM-YWCA annual Marathon Run Clinic, my assigned running group each January was the 10-minute milers, whom I affectionately dubbed The Turtles. Our motto: “No course too short, no pace too slow.”   My group members were typically either former runners slowly returning after an injury, or people who were brand new to running. The newbies were as enthusiastic as their freshly-made New Year’s resolutions:  one, for example, declared to me that this was the year that he was finally going to quit smoking, lose 30 pounds, and run a marathon.

To which I replied: “Honey, pick ONE. . .”     .           .  Continue reading “Behaviour change: if it’s so ‘easy’, why do so many studies show it won’t last?” →

When “nudging” doesn’t work to change patient behaviour

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 26 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

CAROLYN’S WARNING:  this article contains a C-word that drives many chronically ill patients stark raving bonkers. Continue reading only if you can stomach the word “COMPLIANT”

Dr. Aaron E. Carroll wrote a compelling essay in the New York Times recently. (By the way, I’ve often wondered why so many people – mostly men, I’ve observed – insist on formally using a middle initial? Is it to differentiate them from all of the other Dr. Aaron Carrolls out there?)*

Dr. Aaron E. Carroll’s subject has intrigued me ever since 2008 when I was told in the CCU that, from now on, I needed to take this fistful of new cardiac meds – many of them every day for the rest of my natural life.

Pesky patients who, for whatever reason, do not follow doctors’ orders represent a perennial frustration in medicine. Sometimes the consequences of not being “compliant” (or “adherent”, the slightly less patronizing term) are brutal, so this decision not to can be deadly serious, accounting for two-thirds of medication-related hospital admissions. And more to the point, it begs the question of how to convince people to do what the doctor says they must (or, as some people – but not me – like to call it: “how to make non-compliant patients compliant”). Continue reading “When “nudging” doesn’t work to change patient behaviour” →

Pill splitting: which ones are safe to divide?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 30 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

pills-1173656_1280Physicians and other prescribers are often frustrated by their non-compliant patients. (Full disclosure: as I’ve written about here and here, for example, even the word non-compliant makes me cranky, as it sounds so much like it has punishment at the end of it). These frustrating patients are generally described as those who are not following doctor’s orders (there’s another patronizing term for you) or more specifically, are not taking the medications prescribed for them.

A Consumer Reports Health prescription drugs survey reported that many people are splitting their pills in half to save money on high-priced prescription drugs. The bad news, however, is that many have also learned to save even more money by taking half-doses of half-a-pill every other day. Continue reading “Pill splitting: which ones are safe to divide?” →