Your Role:

Taking medication on schedule is a task that must be learned. Like the dieter who must learn how to select low-calorie, low-fat food instead of standard fare, you have to learn to select specific times to take medication that work best for you (for example, with meals, at bedtime) and program those times into your daily schedule. All these lifestyle changes are quality of life issues. Fulfilling the plan to diet or take medication depends on your acceptance of how the program fits into your daily activities. If medication program is too complex or interferes greatly with your usual activities, you probably won’t do it. If a medication causes problems, or does not control seizures as well as you want, you are less likely to value it as an essential daily activity (particularly if it is a second or third drug).

Continue to Measuring Medical Compliance

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