Hints from Heloise

Dear Heloise: After my 90-year-old mother fell and broke her hip, she suddenly went from just two medications a day to 16 spread out over several times daily. Those seven-day, four-time-slot boxes were handy, but they took a long time to fill correctly.

My sister typed out a spreadsheet, color-coded to the colors on the compartment lids, with the medication name and dosage. She then took colored smiley-face stickers matching the color code on the spreadsheet and the compartment covers and placed them on the medicine-bottle lids. If mom takes the medication twice a day, she cut the stickers in half so both colors showed on the lid. Now, instead of constantly checking the bottle to find the correct one, I simply sort the bottles by their colored stickers and use the spreadsheet to verify the correct dosage. When her prescription has to be refilled, I simply take the old cap off with the sticker and put it on the new bottle. – Kyle Gregory, Monroe, La.