A pilot study to assess cognition and pillbox fill accuracy by community-dwelling older adults.

OBJECTIVE

To assess pillbox fill accuracy and cognition among community-dwelling older adults.

DESIGN

A descriptive, cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Retail pharmacy.

PARTICIPANTS

Convenience sample of English-speaking adults older than 60 years of age without dementia, taking more than four medications, and naive to Mediset use.

INTERVENTIONS

In face-to-face interviews, subjects provided demographic, medical, and medication information, completed the Mini-Cog and Medi-Cog (combination of Mini-Cog and medication-transfer screen [MTS]), and filled their own medications in a pillbox. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and stepwise regression analysis with correctly filled pill count (PC) as the dependent variable and the cognitive screens as independent variables.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Accuracy of the Mini-Cog, MTS, and Medi-Cog in predicting PC.

RESULTS

Among 50 subjects (58% female, mean age 76.4 years), only one subject failed to pass the Mini-Cog and two failed to reach the criterion level of correctly filled PC. The mean (standard deviation) Mini-Cog score for the sample was 4.38 (0.81), MTS score was 4.1 (1.31), Medi-Cog score was 8.48 (1.82), and the mean PC was 97% (8%). The Mini-Cog and MTS individually accounted for about 30% of the variance (P < 0.001); the Medi-Cog accounted for 44% of the variance (P < 0.001), indicating strongest PC prediction.

CONCLUSION

Nearly all study participants filled pillboxes accurately. The Medi-Cog was the strongest predictor of pillbox fill accuracy. Future studies of medication self-management abilities among community-dwelling older adults should include representative samples of this population, comprehensive assessment of health status, cognitive screening, pillbox fill accuracy, and the utilization of medications in filled pillboxes.