Seniors' ability to take oral prescription drugs safely was affected by cognitive function and socioeconomic status. Although the MedTake test helped identify some problems with therapy adherence, a pharmacist's follow-up evaluation of comprehensive medical and drug histories identified additional potentially clinically significant problems in 20% of subjects.

Hospice and palliative care have undergone dramatic changes in the past 30 years. Educational initiatives and certification programs for physicians (American Board of Hospice and Palliative Medicine) and nurses (National Board for Certification of Hospice and Palliative Nurses) have further delineated this area of practice as distinct from geriatrics, neurology, anesthesiology, or oncology. As other professions assess their own practices of hospice and end-of-life (EOL) care education in their respective schools and colleges, the pharmacy profession must also ensure that its future graduates are prepared to adequately participate in this type of care. This was a descriptive study in which all accredited schools and colleges of pharmacy in the US were queried regarding their level of curricular commitment to EOL care. Eighty-three questionnaires were mailed, and 60 schools responded (72 percent). Four primary informational items regarding EOL and palliative care education were targeted, including availability of didactic teaching, specialization of pharmacy faculty, availability and type of clerkships, and method of instruction. Sixty-two percent of respondents indicated EOL care education was provided didactically (3.89 +/- 1.91 lecture hours per year). Fifty-eight percent of respondents indicated that EOL care experiential clerkships were available (4.97 +/- 1.25 weeks in duration). These data indicate that over half of US pharmacy students receive some exposure to EOL care education.

We observed that the REALM word-recognition pronunciation test, along with age, number of OTC drugs, and 2 socioeconomic questions, predicted the intent of seniors to correctly take their own prescribed oral medications.