Person-centred scenario

Jane Shanahan, a pharmacy technician working in care homes, gives an example of how she used a person-centred care approach in her practice. Consider how the example Jane gives can link to your professional practice.

“In 2019, I undertook a patient-facing medication review, and I will always remember this one. I had a person at this stage with anticholinergic burden and this gentleman’s anticholinergic burden was very high. Through questioning and supporting the patient, he told me that he had a very dry mouth and I knew that that was one of the side effects of anticholinergic medicines. 

And what mattered to him at that time, all he wanted to do was taste his food. He loved chocolate and he actually said ‘I keep telling people I have a very dry mouth and nobody is doing anything about it’, he kept telling me. The carer said ‘yeah, we keep giving you lots of drinks’, and things like that, but nothing was making a difference.

I noticed that he was wearing incontinence pads, he was taking oxybutynin and also amitriptyline so he had an ACB score of six. I discussed the oxybutynin with him and got his thoughts about it. He said ‘I don’t think it’s working any longer’. We agreed that I’d discuss it with the GP on behalf of him and the GP said ‘let’s consider a trial without’.

A month later, I went to review the patient again and the side effects of dry mouth had reversed. He was delighted, he was more comfortable, he could taste chocolate, he was absolutely delighted. He had gained weight.

And we agreed at the time he was getting all the risks from the medicines and absolutely no benefit any longer.

That was obviously an incredible outcome, from then on I was a woman on a mission, doing patient-facing medication reviews as much as I could.”