Innovative Website Helps Seniors Take Medicines Safely

By Wendy Nakajima

As you get older, is it difficult to remember information about prescribed medicine? Do you worry about cancer or diabetes? If you answered yes to these questions, consider visiting the senior-friendly government Web site called NIH Senior Health.

This site, www.nihseniorhealth.gov, features aging-related health information from the National Institute of Health. People age 65 and older take more prescription and over-the-counter medicines than any other age group. To ensure that seniors are taking medications safely, this website includes information about safety procedures, the impact of medicine on your body and future medicinal research.

"Many older Americans owe their health in part to new and improved medicines, but using them may be riskier for older adults, especially when several medicines are used at one time," says Jeremy M. Berg, Ph.D., director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which developed the content for the safe use of medicines topic on the Web site. "To help avoid risk, older Americans now can turn to NIHSeniorHealth.gov for accurate, helpful information about how to take medicines safely and manage them wisely."

NIHSeniorHealth.gov also contains knowledgeable resources about chronic illnesses such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. Web users can browse information for the cause, symptoms and risk factors of a specified illness.

The site was designed for seniors and features short, easy-to-read segments of information that can be accessed in a variety of formats, including large-print, open-captioned videos and even a talking version. NIHSeniorHealth.gov also contains links to MedlinePlus.gov, a premier governmental site for consumer health information.

Wendy Nakajima is a journalism major at the University of Missouri-Columbia.