In this post, I’ll share 31+ creative ways you can remember to take you medication. As a home health speech-language pathologist (SLP), one of my primary roles is to help keep people out of the hospital. Unfortunately, not taking medication correctly is the direct cause of more than a million visits to the emergency room each year.
Free DIRECT download: 31 creative ways to remember to take medication (patient handout). (Email subscribers get free access to all the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
There are many reasons why someone doesn’t take their medication correctly, including:
- Forgetfulness.
- Misunderstanding the directions.
- Not understanding the importance.
- Denying a problem exists.
- Distrust of doctors or medicine.
Outline of this post:
- Visual reminders.
- Mid-tech alarms.
- Mobile medical apps.
- Pill boxes.
- Pre-packaged doses from the pharmacy.
- Make taking your medicine a habit.
- Related resources.
- Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts.
- What helps you remember to take your medication?
Part of the skill of a home health nurse, SLP, or OT is to assess a person’s current abilities and available support to narrow down the list of possible solutions. Then we work with the person to see which tools work best for them, taking into account their preferences. Depending on the situation, we may start with a higher level of support while we work to improve their memory and other cognitive skills in therapy.
Visual reminders
The medicine itself
If you only take a few medications, you can use the bottles themselves to remind you.
- Place the bottles where you’ll see them at the time of the day you have to take them.
- Turn the bottles upside down when you take them. Then at the end of the day, turn them right-side up.
If you use a pill box, keep it where you’ll see it when you need to take your pills. Be sure to keep out of reach of children. Also, don’t put your medication in direct sunlight, near a heat source, or in the bathroom (humidity).
A written note
Sometimes, all it takes is a written note to remind you to “take your pills.”
- Put the note where you’ll see it at that time of the day.
- Place a brightly-colored sticky note on the bathroom mirror for morning medications.
- Place a note on the kitchen table or the refrigerator for mid-day medications.
- Fold an index card to create a standing sign and put on stand beside the bed for evening medications.
A monthly calendar
- In a monthly calendar, put a check-mark in the box for the day once you’ve taken your medication.
- If you take medication more than once each day, you can use the top right corner for morning, right middle for mid-day, and bottom right corner for evening pills.
- In advance, write “pills” in each box on the calendar. Then, when you take your medication, cross it off.
- If you’re trying to remember a medication that you take a few times a week, write the name of that medication on the calendar for each of those days in advance. Then cross it off when you take it.
A checklist
- Add your medications to your daily “to-do” list.
- Refer to your to-do list throughout the day and check it off as you take them.
- Write your to-do list including medications on a dry-erase board. Erase each task as you do it.
A chart
Many of my patients find charts to be very helpful. Here are some examples from my experience:
- Create a seven-day chart with each dose listed in the chart.
- Print out or copy multiple pages.
- Each week, put a new copy by your pill box.
- Each time you take a medication, cross it off as you take it.
- Use a dry-erase board to set up a weekly chart.
- Write the days of the week down the left-hand side, and the times of day you take medications along the top.
- Then draw lines to create boxes.
- When you take your medicine, put a checkmark in the corresponding box.
- Use a magnetic board to create the chart described in the previous tip.
- Put a small round magnet in each box at the start of the week.
- Each time you take your medication, remove the magnet from the corresponding box.
- If you only take your medication once per day, you can use a magnetic board to create a simple chart.
- List the days of the week down the left side.
- Across the top write “Not taken” and “Taken”.
- Place a small round magnet in each “Not taken” box at the start of the week.
- Each time you take your medication, move the magnet over to the right.
Mid-tech alarms
If a visual reminder isn’t enough, adding an alarm may do the trick.
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Watch with alarm feature
- You can wear a “normal” watch which has a built-in alarm feature. Some watches allow up to 12 alarms to be set.
- The alarm is a reminder to do something, but you have to remember what it is you’re supposed to do.
- You can pair this with your daily checklist or chart to remember.
Clock and calendar apps
- Set an alarm or reminder on your mobile device using the clock or calendar app.
Medical watches and portable items
- Wear a medical watch, which provide reminders as well as alarms.
- CADEX and VibraLITE medical watches can be found on sites such as EPill.com and Amazon.com*.
- CADEX also makes pendants, a pocket watch, and a carabiner pendant watch.
Here’s a video demonstrating the 12-alarm vibrating Cadex watch.
This watch has useful features not found on a “normal” watch, including:
- A customizable text display for each alarm.
- A shorter beep goes off every three minutes until you’ve touched the button again to indicate you’ve taken the medication.
- Alert button allows you to scroll through personal information, such as allergies, medical condition, name, address, medications, medical insurance, and doctor.
- Carry a portable alarm system, some of which vibrate.
- Epill.com sells other portable alarm systems, such as a keychain, a pager, a pocket pillbox, and a pocket alarm.
Larger alarm systems
- Ask your local pharmacy if they provide medicine bottle lids with built-in alarms.
- COAD is a smart pill-box that works in sync with an app to remind you to take your medication, notify loved ones if you forget, and allows you to generate adherence reports you can show your doctor. This product was developed by Rose Engler, after her father had a stroke after 6 months of not taking cardiovascular medication regularly.
- Reminder Rosie is a talking clock that allows a family member to record reminders in their own voice to be played on specific days and times.
- You can record up to 25 reminders.
- The user can ask the clock for the current day or time, as well as for a list of the days activities.
- Some digital calendars include medication reminder alarms.
- For instance, Amazon.com sells this American Life digital calendar* which includes up to 5 daily alarms plus 3 medication reminder alarms. Several of my patients have bought this, and it’s been very helpful for both orientation and remembering to take medications.
*Starred items are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. There is no extra charge to you, and it will help keep Eat, Speak, & Think sustainable.
Mobile medical apps
- There are a number of free mobile apps that provide medication reminders, including:
- COAD – works with a smart pill box (Android)
- Drugs.com pill reminder app (iPhone)
- Mango Health (Android, iOS)
- MedHelper (Android, iOS)
- MediSafe (Android, iOS)
- MedCoach ($4 month or free with 5Star Urgent Response, Jitterbug Flip Phone only)
Pill boxes
Pill boxes can be low-tech, mid-tech, or high-tech.
Low-tech pill box
- A low-tech pill box is simply a container divided into different compartments.
- The pills for each time of day are sorted into the different compartments.
- These simple pill boxes can be found in most pharmacies.
- You’ll find a wider variety online, such as on Walmart.com or Amazon.com*.
Mid-tech pill box
- A mid-tech pill box incorporates an alarm, but isn’t locked and doesn’t dispense medication.
- Epill.com and Amazon.com* sell a variety of pill boxes with alarms.
- The alarms may be attached to the pill box or may be portable or wearable.
- Some of the detached alarms vibrate.
A few of my patients have paired this MedCenter Talking Alarm Clock* with their standard pill boxes for an effective reminder system.
High-tech pill box
- A high-tech pill box is a locked box that dispenses medication at the appropriate time and may notify a caregiver if a dose is missed.
- Epill.com and Amazon.com* sell a variety of automatic pill dispensers.
- Epill.com includes a nice comparison table.
- Each company sells at least one model that includes a free monitoring service. If the medication isn’t removed from the dispensing window within an hour, a message will be sent to the designated caregiver by phone, text, or email.
If you want the monitoring service for a short period of time (a year or less), then it might make more sense to pay a monthly subscription fee for the automatic pill dispenser from a company such as Philips Lifeline.
Several of my patients have used this particular model, the MedELert Locking Automatic Pill Dispenser*, and in my experience, it works well. It has a clear lid, so you can easily tell if any doses have been missed. This model doesn’t include a monitoring service.
*Starred items are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon associate, I may earn a small commission on qualifying purchases. There is no extra charge to you, and it will help keep Eat, Speak, & Think sustainable.
Pre-packaged doses from the pharmacy
- Some of your local pharmacies may pre-pour medications into a pill box or blister packs. It’s worth a call to find out.
- PillPack mail-order pharmacy sends you your pills sorted into pouches according to when you take them.
- For example, all of your pills for tomorrow morning would be in a single plastic pouch and clearly labeled.
- This is a free service!
Make taking your medicine a habit
Medication should be taken at the same time every day and luckily we are generally creatures of habit. If you can establish a routine for taking your medications, you’ll be much more likely to remember.
- Create a habit by taking your medicine just before or after doing something you already do every day.
- For instance, let’s say you have to take a medication in the morning on an empty stomach.
- You’re forgetting to take it when you get up, which delays breakfast.
- Let’s say you always use the bathroom immediately after getting up.
- Make it a habit to take your medication immediately after using the bathroom.
- You could keep a sticky note on the mirror over the sink to remind you for the first week or two.
- After several days or weeks, taking your medication after going to the bathroom in the morning will simply be a part of your daily routine.
- Another way to establish a habit is to play a game designed to motivate creating new habits.
- Be mindful when you are actually swallowing the medicine to improve your confidence later that you actually took it.
- We don’t remember things well if we don’t pay attention in the first place!
Related resources
Drugs.com Medication Guide is a free app for Android and iOS. The medication guide allows you to “lookup drug information, identify pills, check interactions and set up your own personal medication records.”
GoodRX.com allows you to enter your medication information and find out how much each pharmacy in your area charges. You can then download a discount code which can save you even more. You don’t have to enter any personal information. My migraine medication dropped from $12.59 a pill to $7.09 a pill in the same pharmacy using the code. Then I switched to another pharmacy, and the same prescription is $1.42 a pill!
Related Eat, Speak, & Think posts
- SLPs play an important role in home health medication education.
- Low vision tips: Bigger, bolder, & brighter.
What helps you remember to take your medication?
I’d love to other ideas that could be helpful to me or to the people I work with. Leave a comment below!
Free DIRECT download: 31 creative ways to remember to take medication (patient handout/cheat sheet). (Email subscribers get free access to all of the resources in the Free Subscription Library.)
Lisa earned her M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from the University of Maryland, College Park and her M.A. in Linguistics from the University of California, San Diego.
She participated in research studies with the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) and the University of Maryland in the areas of aphasia, Parkinson’s Disease, epilepsy, and fluency disorders.
Lisa has been working as a medical speech-language pathologist since 2008. She has a strong passion for evidence-based assessment and therapy, having earned five ASHA Awards for Professional Participation in Continuing Education.
She launched EatSpeakThink.com in June 2018 to help other clinicians be more successful working in home health, as well as to provide strategies and resources to people living with problems eating, speaking, or thinking.
This is a pretty great post. I’ve been thinking of starting a blog on this subject myself. Any tips or anything you would recommend that I to avoid?
Thank you! Medication management / compliance is such an important area. I checked out your website and appreciate the benefits of physicians dispensing meds. My tip would be to think about health literacy and different ways to improve patient understanding and compliance with meds. (Is that the type of tip you thought I might share?) Are you writing a single blog post or dedicating an entire blog to the subject? I’d consider video or audio in addition to text. (I’m planning this, too.)
I think any reminder app from our phone will be the great way to take our medication properly. There are lots of app in the app store to reminding us anything. But remind us of medication is really important one. Nobody wants to miss the medication date. So according to me, the app would be a great way.
Hi Nancy,
Thanks so much for your comment! Yes, apps are a very helpful tool for many people. Unfortunately, they’re not the solution for everyone. So it’s good to have options, because you’re right – no one wants to mess up their medication regiment!
I’ve just learned of an app designed for people with epilepsy, which includes a medication reminder: Epsy, https://www.epsyhealth.com/.
I want an app that doesn’t request my medications just the time of day I take them I feel my medications are my own private business.
Hi Sheren,
I think you should be able to find an app that lets you enter the name of medications that aren’t in their database. If so, you could number your medicines or color-code them, and then only enter the number or color into the app. Another thing you could consider is setting alarms or reminders on your phone (such as using the clock function and set a daily reminder at 9 PM to take night medications, for instance).
Thanks for commenting!
Lisa
Great post. I am thankful for such great kind of information
My pleasure.
Packing Organizers that you know the exact thing in each Organizer, and it is extremely simple to track down things. The pill organizers are the products that are useful for patients to store their daily and weekly medicines in several compartments to have them daily without fail. I used Carismedic pill organizers for my parents.
My wife has to take a medication “before” she eats anything because of a Panaceas deficiency. We have solved the problems with regular meals to a large degree, but a problem remains when she eats a snack or a last minute, “I’m hungry” thought. How can we create a system that will help us remember to take a pill at this time?
Hmm, good question. Perhaps a sign on the refrigerator and cupboards? (My apologies for the very late reply. I just saw this comment now.)
I use Nudge medication tracking device. It combines physical alarms like lights and beeps with emails and push notifications. Plus it has a really small footprint.
Helped me track a complicated schedule of numerous doses a day. https://nudgedevice.com/
Thanks for sharing!