Treatment failure can be directly traced to medicine misuse. For example, missed doses of glaucoma medicine can lead to optic nerve damage and blindness. And in patients taking certain medicines for high blood pressure, missing doses or stopping the medicine suddenly can cause a rebound rise in blood pressure higher than it was before the medicine was begun. Such illnesses include mental disorders, heart and blood vessel diseases, asthma, glaucoma, and osteoporosis. Another factor is old age.
Older people tend to have serious illnesses and take several medicines.
They often have vision so poor it interferes with reading labels. One in four prescriptions is for a person 65 or older, NPC states. With each new prescription, a patient's first step to safe and effective treatment is to ask the doctor questions. Some patients need to overcome a certain barrier, says FDA's Ellen Tabak, Ph.D., of the agency's division of drug marketing, advertising and communications. There is a feeling among some patients that it will be a bother if they ask a question.