I recently visited my elderly parents and found their medications mixed together in pill containers.

I had to deal with a similar situation with my own parents, and you're right to be concerned. Elderly people -- with or without dementia -- won't remember if they took their pills and accidentally take them again and overdose. It even happened to a dear friend of mine, who left new pills in the room of her sweet elderly mother, who didn't remember she'd taken them earlier, and she ended up in the hospital for a week and nearly died.

Here are some solutions to try to avoid a tragedy. You can try using Sharpies to color code the pill bottle tops with red for your mom's pills and black for your dad's pills. Another option -- that can be used in tandem with the Sharpie strategy -- is to mount an erasable bulletin board on the wall above the meds to easily check off morning, afternoon, and evening doses. It's also important that all their medications come from one pharmacy, so there's a better chance of catching drug interactions early. If your parents are using multiple pharmacies, get their prescriptions transferred to just one pharmacy.

Keep in mind that despite all your efforts, your parents may still mix up the medication, misplace it, or worse, take more than they're supposed to. If you feel this is a risk, hide the medicine. Or go to an office supply store and buy a large lockable cashbox, put a divider down the middle, and put all their medications in there. (Make sure to give a copy of the key to someone else in case there's an emergency, and you can't get to the house in time.)

If your parents live alone, and you can't get there everyday to make sure their medications are being taken correctly, check out this helpful product: the Automatic Medication Dispenser. It's available through The Alzheimer's Store (www.alzstore.com).