It’s a small moment, but it perfectly captures both how inaccessible packaging can be when the strength and dexterity in your hands are affected by RA and the violence of the emotions that accompany such situations. The difference, however, is that the Full Card Blister is attached to the back via flanges rather than being heat-sealed. Several months later in our final discussion with Zac, before the end of our data collection period, he had yet to have this conversation with his GP. This includes (but not limited to) liquid and food waste, cardboard, paper, laminated paper, compostable material such as PLA and PHA (except for the Biodegradable Plastics - Zero Waste Box™), borosilicate glass and electronic waste. Table 1 summarises our data collection across general practices, community pharmacies and patients’ homes.

This makes it easy for a patient to select the correct time and day, and push out all of their required medication for that time. She is unsure of some of their names but, like Marco, she recognises them by their material properties.The National Alliance for Caregiving reports that 50% of families experience emotional stress and anxiety from caring for their loved ones. You can get a variety of organizers, with as many slots per day as you need, as well as ones that can detach to take with you during the day. Caregivers can view detailed information about current and past blister pack adherence on their phone and computer. I have used the services of this pharmacy recently and found it to be a most user friendly operation. There is one open strip of capsules adjacent to the Laxido sachet, but otherwise everything is kept in its original box.

We then shift our ethnographic gaze from the professional context into the private context of patients’ homes to address the question: ‘How do patients organise their medicines and medicine-taking? To set the scene, we begin in a community pharmacy, with a brief ethnographic description of practices we observed as professionals prepared multicompartment compliance aids (MCCAs) or ‘dosette’ boxes for some patients affected by polypharmacy. In this paper, we focus primarily on the practices of older adults who live at home and are prescribed 10 or more separate items of medication. The weekly trays have 28 compartments which are labeled Morning, Noon, Evening, and Night across the top, and each day of the week going down the side.Ultimately, the decision is yours and you don't have to agree to any treatment that you're not happy with. I've been using just about every Pharmacy in Letchworth over the years, everyone has had issues, mainly with my prescriptions not being made in time and having to wait for hours to collect them. Slow lines’ may be designated ‘externals’ (meaning that the medicine is added to a dosette box by hand once the robot has done its job). Patients strive for adherence, but their organisational efforts privilege ‘living with medicines’ over taking medicines strictly ‘as prescribed’.