What is your superpower?

Most of us attempt to practice healthy habits in a number of ways — we go on walks, take yoga classes, and drink all the trendy healthy beverages. However, very few people eagerly await the time in their day that they take their pills. Some argue that the dilemma of medication adherence should be addressed by shifting a doctor’s focus from the patient to the person. Because, as Dennis Robbins recently said, “Patients don’t change or take ownership or self-determine their futures and destinies. Persons do!”

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Researchers have been trying to tackle the problem of medication non-adherence for a while now, and lately, they have been approaching the issue with behavioral economics. Studies in which patients were entered into either a lottery contract or a deposit contract for meeting weight loss goals or to quit smoking showed that behavioral economics can be fairly effective in public health care.

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I don’t take my medication like I’m supposed to. I am an incredibly non-compliant patient even though I know it may negatively impact my health. I will use my Flonase for as long as I am symptomatic or those around me are. But, if I stop seeing people with red noses and itchy, watery eyes, I’ll stop taking it until the next round of allergies comes around. I never even took birth control as prescribed. I doubled up on doses and forgot days here and there but never had an unplanned pregnancy — regardless of whatever kind of havoc it may have been inflicting on my hormones. If I had understood the long-term effects of my habits back then I may have been a bit more compliant. But my doctor would see me maybe a total of an hour a year and I wanted to show that I knew my body better.

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