I may only be 30-ish, but I have lots and lots and LOTS of trouble with my memory! Believe it or not, but before I got sick 10 years ago, it used to be my best attribute. I could remember anything I read, and I didn't quite have photographic memory but if I studied my text books at school, I could "read" the answers back from the page in my head by the time exams came.
So my memory problems now are quite a come-down, as you can imagine. Now ... now, I don't remember what I had for lunch today, or for dinner yesterday. I remember breakfast, but only because I have the same thing every day! Memory, or lack of it, is one of the things about my diseases that upsets and worries me the most. I think that if I could just remember things again, it would all be so much easier.
But it's not to be, so instead of remembering, I adapt. This page explains some of the things I use to adapt. I hope it's helpful to you.
Remembering Medications
Remembering to take my pills four times a day is one of those things that's
an ongoing challenge, with such a memory loss. "Did I take my pills
yet?" ,
"Oh no, did I take them twice?", "Or did I forget them?"
and so on are commonly heard around my house.
Dosette Box
My first line of attack for remembering to take capsules, tablets and other "pill" type things is a dosette box. They come in different shapes and sizes and arrangements, but the idea is that there's a separate compartment for each dose of pills for either a complete day, or even a complete week. Mine looks much like this:
It has one compartment for each of breakfast, lunch, evening meal and bed time for each day of the week. I am a very lucky person also, because once a week, my pharmacist fills it for me free of charge! This dosette method lets me - or my carers - see at a glance whether a particular day's medication has been taken, and also greatly lessens the possibility of taking a dose twice. I find it to be a lifesaver.
Somebody To Remind You
As another "line of defence" to make sure I take my medications, the carers who look after me have it written into their instructions to remind me to take my medications, and later on to check the dosette that the right meds have been taken. This greatly increases the chance of me remembering to take the darn thing, because they will bring it to me with a glass of water and a pointed look if I forget!
Set An Alarm
As a "last gasp" effort, I have a fancy device (for the technical people, it's actually a Palm Pilot) where I can set 4 alarms for each day - one for each set of medications. Because my memory problems are so bad, often I will silence the little beeping device and then still forget to take the relavant medications, but I like to think it helps a little!
Your Contributions Welcome
If you have other hints and tips you'd like to share about how you remember to do things whilst beset by memory problems, please feel free to email me and I can include them on this very page. Thanks in advance.
