{mosimage}Date: 12th July 2009
Time: 10:30am thru 5pm
Venue: S P Jain Auditorium at Bombay Hospital
Compliance
This FOM meeting in Mumbai focused on a very important topic – Compliance:- Patients’ compliance on their respective doctors’ advice regarding medication for CML. Primarily most patients are required to take Glivec (dosage as per their doctor’s advice) on a daily basis.
Need for awareness:
Many patients tend to skip medication for various reasons other than being told to stop by their doctors and this is a matter of concern. A panel discussion was led by Dr. Kumar Prabash from Tata Memorial Hospital and four volunteers from FOM Mumbai namely Kerul Patel, Neeraj, Dr. Jude Vaz and Manek ji Shah. All the volunteers who shared their experiences were on medication for the past 3 to 5 years.
Dr. Kumar Prabash: spelled out the importance on compliance of doctor’s prescribed dosage of Glivec. A patient should only stop Glivec if he/she has been advised to do so by their doctors. Under no circumstances should a patient take matters in their own hands and stop medication even for a day (lest it became a habit) as it could be detrimental to their health. He then requested the panelists to share their experiences as to how they complied in taking their dose of daily pills without failing or skipping.
Kerul Patel: Had no problems in remembering to take his medication. Taking Glivec is part of his daily routine. Just as someone on a daily routine would wake up in the morning, and perform his routine tasks such as brushing, bathing, eating and going off to work; taking his medication has become a part of such a daily routine.
Neeraj: My relative cannot forget to take his medication even if he wanted to, as he has an army of reminders in his family. Neeraj described how she helped her relative to remember to take his medication. As he travels a lot, other family members too help in reminding him to pack his dose of Glivec before traveling. She shared how sometimes 2-3 phone calls would go out from several relatives reminding him to take his medication when he was out of the city in addition to regular text messages.
Dr. Jude Vaz: shared how sometimes he used to forget taking his medication. He came up with a simple solution which he shared with FOM. The solution was that he would pen mark the dates behind each strip of meds when he received them. Then when ever he was not sure, he’d simply look behind the strip to check the date and he would know if he’s taken his pills or forgotten them. Simple solutions to complex problems and that’s Dr. Vaz.
Manekji Shaw : 80 plus and the picture of perfect health and on Glivec . We did not even need to hear what he had to say . His presence and erect , alert demeanour said it all .
The discussion was extremely helpful as it gave all participants ideas and suggestions as to how they could comply in taking their medication.
Summary:
All patients were required to take Glivec on a daily basis. Temporarily stopping medication should only be done if advised by their doctors. Compliance is in the best interest of all of us .
Reported by Kerul Patel