As people age,their manual dexterity declines,and it may be difficult for elderly people to open medication packages well,especially those of powder medications.This becomes more of a problem for patients taking multiple drugs.To obtain data useful for solving this problem,we evaluated the ease of opening strip packages of powder medications by elderly people.The subjects were asked to evaluate the difficulty of separating individual packages from strips,and of opening them.Some subjects tended to accidentally open the packages when trying to separate them from the strip.In addition,the ease of opening packages depended more on the presence a notch in the package material than the strength required to open it.The findings of the present study should be applied not only to elderly patients hospitalized in medical institutions but also those living in their homes.Further investigation should be conducted in order to develop standards for medication packages that can be easily opened by a greater number of people.
