I came to people’s homes, who had a shoebox full of medicines, and who no longer have an overview of which medicine they took for what. In my opinion, the fault does not lie with the care recipient, but with the doctor and the pharmaceutical industry.
Everything is solved with a pill, people think, and that’s how they act. In addition, we have Big Pharma that stimulates drug prescribing behavior and influences the guidelines in such a way that everyone is on cholesterol-lowering drugs from their 50th birthday until their death. Because that’s what Big Pharma prefers, swallowing medication until you die, because that yields a lot, a lot of money!. And doctors hardly dare to deviate from guidelines. Guidelines are no longer guidelines, but have become laws. The guidelines and protocols are there to improve the quality of care, but they are misused to hold care providers accountable if they act differently than the guidelines and protocols prescribe.
Do not check the medication once a year, but every three months. People had been taking painkillers for years, not the least of them, from the opiate group, and when I asked are you in pain, the answer was no! But by then the addictive effect of the opiate has already taken effect. Many conditions benefit from healthy eating and exercise, but medication is the answer. And if you as a care recipient do not want medication and ask for a different solution, the doctor will look at you as if he sees water burning. But that other solution is very often there, and better, and healthier for body and limb.
Herman Koster, ‘s Heerenberg