Confusion regarding medication prescribed - what to do?

My mother is currently in Henry Bennett at Waikato after having a rather bad psychotic episode due to confusion over doasge of Quetiapine. Im quite upset that this has come about. A scary experience for her and rather horrific few days for us family members involved in getting Crisis mental health involved etc. Mum suffers from bipolar and Schizophrenia. She takes lithium and Quetiapine. Her dosage of Quetiapine is 225mg, she is prescribed 1x 200mg and 1x 25mg daily. Mum was running low of her Quetiapine, and phd her doctor for prescription repeat a few months back, Mum has looked at her 25mg Quetiapine and asked for a repeat of this, the doctors nurse has taken the call, and asked her if she needs the "other" (nurse meaning the 200mg Quetiapine) Mum assumed nurse meant Lithium, and said no. Therefore unknowingly my mother reduced her intake of Quetiapine form 225mg to 25mg, which has in effect created a psychotic episode.

On questioning both doctor and nurse, they are saying, not their fault, Mum is aware of the dosage she should be taking, they gave her repeat on what "she" asked for. Trying to explain to Mum, just how careful we need to be in taking her meds, just gets her back up, she gets defensive. She hates the thought of me checking her scripts each time, makes her feel like she not capable etc.

I just want to make sure this never happends again, its just too easy for her to get confused, yet she too proud to ask or accept me or my sister to oversee her tablets. What to do?????? Someone suggested blister packs, would this solve this issue? Are they more expensive than normal prescriptions each time? Who ensures a blister pack is ALWAYS given, is it up to the GP to specify? Mum not keen on idea of blister pack, cause she said its just for old and senile people!! Im trying to talk her round.

Thoughts? Advice welcomed :-)

I have an elderly friend that used blister packs for a while for her meds. What I would call basic meds. pain killers etc after a fall..
I think she felt the same as your mum, slightly patronised.

You can buy those plastic containers marked out for each day, that you fill the pills into so that you have your doses set up for the week. You do it yourself from your supply of pills, and once it's done you use just the one section per day.

You still have to ensure you have the correct pills in the containers

Hi,

Blister packs are an option. It is up to you or your mother to request them from the pharmacy, I think the are slighty more expense then just picking up your meds normally.

I take rather a lot of meds and have one of those weekly containers the wow was talking about. I find it help in remebering to take everything and less hassle than digging into my med boxes twice a day.

By the sounds of things the incident arose through a break down in communication and a systems failure at the gps. They should have double checked what she was after. I know when I ring my GP they do.

Thanks guys. Had long talk with GP and pharmist. Hopefully we can learn from this, it has been clearly noted with alerts on their systems to double check as scripts issued. And Mum agrees now that blister packs may be the way to avoid further confusion. An extra $3.50 on script. Hopefully Docs at Psych ward let us take Mum out to the Lake for a few hours on Mothers Day. Just waiting to hear :-)