Picture the following:

Doctor: “You aren’t doing as well as I thought you would. Are you taking those pills I asked you to take?”

Patient: “Yeah, I usually do.”

Doctor: “What do you mean, ‘I usually do?’ Do you take them or not?”

Patient: “I do when I remember, but it isn’t always easy for me to get to them.”

Doctor: “What do you mean, ‘It’s not always easy for me to take them?’

Patient: “Hey, I work as a roofer. I have problems getting to them when I’m on the top of a house.”

Doctor: “Well, how do you expect me to help you if you don’t do as I asked you to do?”

Patient: “I try, but I can’t always do so. Even when I take them, I’m not sure they do anything.”

Scenes like this take place each day all over the world. It may not be much of a problem if you have acute pain, but it can be if you have a chronic illness when you are asked to take pills every day whether or not you have any symptoms. A doctor would say that the patient was noncompliant or, a more soothing word (at least to him), nonadherent to what he asked the patient to do. The patient, on the other hand, might refer to the matter in a stronger term such as #@*#ƒΩ. The next step in this game played by both health care providers and their patients is that each party will heap blame and more blame upon the other party. Does it solve the matter? Not on your life: the gulf between parties just continues to widen.

Is there a better way to be certain patients take drugs as told? There certainly is with chronic illness. It requires that both you and your health care provider work together to solve whatever problems pop up in your taking medications. The right drug can usually help control your condition; you want to feel better by taking prescribed drugs. However, there are many problems that may be a barrier to you in wanting to improve you health. A series of entries on this site will describe barriers to taking drugs as prescribed. We hope you not only find them of interest, but also will offer your own comments on any of the topics discussed.