Grandparent's medications pose danger to children.

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in ED, Pedi Vasc access, Paramedic serving 6 towns.

She probably thought they were these neat clear stickers!! A 10 year old is curious and is NOT old enough to know better in my oppinion! Adults need to know better than to leave medications around where kids, no matter what age, can get them!

One pill to kill list:

*Camphor (Vicks vapor rub)

*Calcium Channel Blockers

*Salicylates (aspirin, oil of winter green - 5 teaspoon is equal to 7 GRAMS!!! of salicylate), pepto- bismol - yes, the bright pink suff that kids would find attractive to ingest can kill them (it contains 131 mg/5 mL), and Ben-Gay to name a few.

*Clonidine

*Narcotics

* Trycilcic antidepressents

*Lomotil

*Sulfonylyreas

Further information on the above list can be found at: http://columbia.phsor.org/psvmcpulse/pedsED/Archives/When%20One%20Pill%20Can%20Kill.pps

It is our jobs to educate parents and grandparents about the dangers of these medications in kids. I think a lot of people dismiss the dangers of certain medications becuase they seem so harmless and are OTC! I think the biggest gap is in educating elderly people on these dangers, I do not think most practitioners think of it as necessary to educate grandma and grandpa....

So please, please when you are doing your discharges, if feasible, add a quick note on mecication safety to your patients, it could save a life!

Happy

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Specializes in Health Information Management.
But surely you knew to leave other people's things alone?

At the age of 10? Well, for the most part, yes - I was well-mannered, sometimes to the point of being timid. But I was also very curious, and if I'd seen a patch just sitting out on a bathroom counter, I might have picked it up and examined it. I don't think I would have applied it, but I might have looked at it and tried to figure out what it was. At that age, I never would have rifled through someone's things or opened someone's medicine cabinet, but a random, harmless-looking object on a counter wouldn't have carried the same taboo in my 10-year-old mind. It isn't something I would do today, but picking up and playing with stray items is just something kids are prone to do, no matter how strict their upbringing. If the patches were simply left out of their pouches on a counter in a common area like a bathroom, that's a recipe for an accident.

I don't take a particularly dim view of children or childhood, but I do take the view that children act on what they're exposed to in daily life. Unfortunately, there are children who grow up witnessing drug abuse. If this child grew up in such circumstances, she might have been curious about what her grandma's medicine would be like. I'm not saying it's the most likely outcome, because I don't believe that to be true, but there are a couple of peculiar points to this story. I hope it was an accident. I hope the little girl manages to come through this with her physical health and mental faculties intact. And I hope everyone who hears about this story does everything he or she can to prevent any similar terrible events.

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Specializes in Med/surg, rural CCU.
I think anyone who thinks this kid was looking to get high or knew the dangers of what she was doing and did them anyway has a pretty dim view on young children. :(

Kids are doing these things earlier and earlier. I'd like to think that's not the case...but I have a hard time believing a 10 yr old child thought it was a sticker. I'm wondering truly= if this wasn't a mentally disabled child who was just curious...

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Specializes in School Nursing.
Kids are doing these things earlier and earlier. I'd like to think that's not the case...but I have a hard time believing a 10 yr old child thought it was a sticker. I'm wondering truly= if this wasn't a mentally disabled child who was just curious...

As is said with every passing generation. If this were true- toddlers would be buying drugs on the street corner at this point. I can't see that kids are getting into drugs and sooner than they were during the hippy area.

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Specializes in School Nursing.

Which is not at all far fetched, imho.

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Specializes in Health Information Management.

So she's talking? I can't find anything that clarifies how the police have come to that conclusion, so I'm hoping this means the little girl hasn't suffered brain damage and is going to be all right.

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Specializes in School Nursing.
So she's talking? I can't find anything that clarifies how the police have come to that conclusion, so I'm hoping this means the little girl hasn't suffered brain damage and is going to be all right.

I'm assuming they came to that conclusion some other way. Like, perhaps, there was a scratch where she had placed the patch? I don't have anything to back up my theory.. just that it's a possible way they'd come to that conclusion without actually speaking with the child.

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Specializes in Health Information Management.
I'm assuming they came to that conclusion some other way. Like, perhaps, there was a scratch where she had placed the patch? I don't have anything to back up my theory.. just that it's a possible way they'd come to that conclusion without actually speaking with the child.

Quite possible. I'm just really hoping for a best-case outcome from this, so the little girl coming around and talking a bit was where my mind went first. I happen to use those patches and a situation like this one involving my preschooler has been a recurrent nightmare of mine for years.

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Which is not at all far fetched, imho.

My son loves the clear bandaids. He's nine.

Buy.com - Band-Aid Clear Bandages, One Size, 30 bandages

steph

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don't understand:

- why she had access and,

- why she couldn't read/understand these weren't bandaids.

i could actually understand it better, if she were simply curious.

leslie

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I just dont understand why these meds were not locked away. It is parenting 101 that medications are kept locked away from children/out of reach and sight, hell it says this on most of the boxes/bottles/packets of medication.

My grandfather is on many tablets for various things as well as insulin and we visit him often and my 6 year old knows that she does not ever ever touch his medication or the bottles that they come in (they are locked away in a cupboard above the sink any way)

I hope the little girl is ok and her parents have learnt from this terrible accident

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