Basics of Medication Management: Compliance

Seizure medications come with dosing schedules varying from once a day to many times per day. If the doses are frequent and the overall schedule for multiple medicines is complicated, then it can be hard to take them correctly. Yet, taking them correctly may be the best way both to control seizures and minimize side effects. Joyce Cramer, President of the Epilepsy Therapy Project and an internationally recognized expert on how to take medications, discusses this issue and provides a useful toolkit.

In brief, here are some things that you can do to help to remember your medicines.

• Commit to taking the pills: if you do not take them, they will not help.
• Discuss ineffectiveness or side effects with your doctor. Do not stop on your own.
• Discuss with your doctor whether your pills can be taken in a simple regimen, for example, once or twice a day and with all pills taken in the same batch.
• Be honest with your doctor about why it is hard to take your pills as prescribed
• Get on a schedule and in the habit
• Use pill boxes or alarm reminders to help you to remember
• If pills are left over at refill time, you are forgetting to take some of them
• Have a plan for catching-up if you miss your medicines
• Look into using the toolkit in this section

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Section Editor: Robert Fisher, M.D., Ph.D., author: Joyce Cramer
Last Reviewed: 11/15/08