be NUM 3 - Sunday, June 18, 1989 - North Shore News Seniors’ drug misuse is a growing concern, North Shore forum told APPROXIMATELY 40 SENIORS caregivers, pharmacists and physicians attended a forum Wednesday in North Van- couver to wrestle with issues surrounding the excessive and improper use of medication by the elderly. The forum was organized by the ._ Community Care Advisory Com- mittee (CCAC) of the North Shore Seniors’ Health Planning Project (NSSHPP). . Said CCAC chair Barbara Miller, ‘‘Our role is to encourage and facilitate action from the community with respect to medica- tion and seniors.”’ & BS KENT PEARSON ... “Some 20 per cent of long-term admissions to facilities are caused by an in- ability to cope with medications.”’ CCAC’s focus is one of four general priority areas identified in an action plan developed by the NSSHPP. MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter The factors contributing to problems arising from the prescriptive and non-prescriptive misuse of medication by the elderly are varied. A growing reliance on easily ac- cessible drugs to mitigate physical and psychological ailments, the use of several pharmacies and doctors simultaneously, the retention and use of old medications, a lack of communication between elderly patients and their pharmacists and physicians, and communication breakdowns between pharmacists and physicians, were some of the issues identified. Such basic factors as the size of print on a medication label or how easily a drug is removed from its container may also contribute to the misuse of medications. Said Sylvia Enga, a homecare nurse with the North Shore Health Department, ‘‘We often find medications in a bowl, because a lot of people can’t open the lids on the packages.”’ Saving old prescriptions in the home is a real problem according to Enga. “In home nursing care we see a Jot of medication profiles,’ she told the gathering. ‘‘But some medications haven't been updated for years. We look at it from an in-bathroom perspective. Some " NEWS photo Mike Wakefield NELLEME FABBRO, North Shore Union Board of Heaith coordinator of volunteers, addresses participants at Wednesday’s forum on seniors and medication awareness. The forum was organized by the Community Care Advisory Commitee of the North Shore Seniors’ Health Planning Project. houses are full of counters of old medicine bottles and these people haven’t seen doctors in years.’” One of the forum participants told of finding prescribed medica- tions dating from the 1920s and 1940s in some North Shore homes. CCAC plans to coordinate community action and awareness campaigns with a provincial gov- ernment initiative called the Seniors Drug Action Program (SDAP). The three-year SDAP initiative MOHAWK OIL'S vice-president of external affairs Gordon Winter displays the Environment Canada en- vironment award recently won by the North Vancouver company. The corporate leadership award recognized Mohewk for its work in recycling used oi! products. Business ..........-... 40 Horescopes........... 39 Lifestyles..............38 Miss Manners..........36 Sports .............+..33 Travel ......... 55200 42 What's Going On........37 Sunday through Tuesday, vleudy with showers. Second Class Registration Nuraber 3885 runs to 1990 and has been working with a budget of $790,000. Ministry of Health clinical services consultant Kent Pearson said a workshop held in February at UBC on medication use and elderly people provided the spring board for a number of new programs to further the rational use of medica- tions by the elderly. According to Pearson, awareness programs focusing on medication misuse prevention could go a long way to providing cost-effective answers to the care and health maintenance of the el- derly. “Some 20 per cent of long-term admissions to facilities are caused by an inability to cope with medications,’’ he said. Programs planned include a brown bag program, where seniors clear out the medicine chest and bring all medications in to physi- cians or pharmacists for review and evaluation. NATIONAL HONOR Mohawk Oil wins environment award NORTH VANCOUVER’S Mohawk Oil Co. Ltd. has won a corporate environmental leadership award at Environment Canada’s first annual Environmental Achievement Awards. The award, which was presented June 4 in Ottawa, recognizes Mohawk as the Canadian company that had best shown over the past year how environmental concerns can pay off financially and aes- theticaily. ‘*People are concerned about the Valdez oil spill,"’ Mohawk spekesman Gordon Winter said Monday, ‘‘but people are unaware of all the oil that is deposited on the land. Imagine what would be happening with all the oil‘in B.C. if not for us.”’ Mohawk's North Vancouver oil recycling plant, which began pro- duction in 1982, currently turns out about 10 million litres of clean oil base annually from about 2! million litres of used oil collected from around B.C. . Approximately 95 million litres of new oil products are sold in B.C. every year. Of that total, 40 million litres is collectable used oil. Mike Falconer, the genera! manager of Mohawk’s lubricant division, said the North Vancouver plant could, at full capacity, pro- cess that total. The plant is currently operating at half capacity, he said, because there is not a large enough market to absorb the operation’s full pro- duction. “Marketing the finished product is what limits us,’’ he said. According to Winter, people get rid of dirty, used oil by such en- vironmentally destructive methods as dumping it on roads or in gar-. bage cans, burning it, dumping it down storm drains and even flushing it down toilets. TIMOTHY REN News Reporter 1AW ‘The Mohawk process distills dir- ty oil, treats it with hydrogen and produces a product that is incis- tinguishable from virgin crude oil. All additives are removed and then replaced to the specifications of customers. The recycling process itself is virtually pollution free. All dirt, sand and the various oil additives in modern oils are reduced into an inert substance used in asphalt. Winter said the public percep- tion that recycled oil is inferior is gradually being overcome. “People are beginning to realize thac base stock is base stock,’’ he said. ‘Oil doesn’t wear out. It just gets dirty.”’ The company has a signed letter of intent from the USSR to pur- chase Mohawk’s oil recycling technology for installation in a plant in that country. He said the Russians could be building as many as !2 of the $12 million plants using Mohawk technology. Representatives from Czechosolvakia and Morocco have also visited the company’s North Shore plant and are negotiating to purchase the Mohawk technology for oil recycling plants in their countries. Mohawk’s North Vancouver oil recycling operation was the first of its kind in Canada: and currently employs 43 plant personnel. The Mohawk process and plant have won three previous en- vironmental awards.