This Grandparents Day Remember to Keep Medicine Up and Away and Out of Sight of Grandkids

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Sep 04, 2014, 03:46 ET

WASHINGTON, Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- This Sunday, September 7, we celebrate National Grandparents Day to honor the special bond these more than 70 million individuals have with their grandchildren. Many play a primary role in their grandchildren's lives. More than 5.4 million children are being raised in households headed by grandparents, and one in eight grandparents care for a grandchild on a regular basis.

While grandparents place a top priority on their grandchildren's safety, an often overlooked danger lurks within easy reach of children in their care: unsecured medications. The facts are sobering:

Every year, more than 60,000 children age five or younger are treated in an emergency room (ER) for accidental medicine poisoning. In 86 percent of those ER visits, the child had easy access to the medication. And in 38 percent of cases, the medicine belonged to a grandparent.
Older adults account for 34 percent of prescription drug use and 30 percent of nonprescription or over-the-counter medication use.
In a Safe Kids survey, grandparents identified electrical outlets over medicine as a top safety issue, even though children are 36 times more likely to go to the ER for medicine poisoning.

To raise awareness about this important issue, the Alliance for Aging Research is collaborating with the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA) Educational Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's PROTECT Initiative to promote the Up and Away and Out of Sight medicine safe storage campaign.

"This campaign raises awareness about the need to keep medications in a safe, secure location," says Susan Peschin, MHS, president and CEO for the Alliance for Aging Research. "By taking this simple precaution, we can make major strides in keeping our children and grandchildren safe."

Resources aimed at raising awareness include a downloadable tip sheet with stats and info on how to safely store medications. This tip sheet and other resources are available here. More tips are available on Twitter using the hashtag #MedsUpAway.

"We encourage grandparents, parents, senior centers and likeminded organizations to display this tip sheet and share it through email, social media or an e-newsletter," says Peschin.

For more information, please visit here or contact Noel Lloyd here or at 202.370.7852.

For more about the Alliance for Aging Research, visit here.

For more about the CHPA Educational Foundation, visit here.

For more about The PROTECT Initiative, visit here.

Noel Lloyd
[email protected]
202.370.7852

SOURCE Alliance for Aging Research