Best Pill Organizers for Seniors: Keeping Meds Tidy

One of the most important things that elderly seniors need is a pill organizer.

This handy tool will help seniors ensure that they take their medication on the correct days and without any confusion.

Pill organizers are designed to make it easier for people to take their medications, as they allow a senior to dispense the number and combination of pills needed ahead of time for each day.

Instead of rifling everyday through several prescription pill jars, once a pill organizer has been compiled for the week, a senior can just pop open one slot and throw back the required meds – easy peasy!

In this article, we’ll break down the best pill organizers for seniors – whether you’re looking for a monthly pill organizer or a weekly one!

What Features to Think About in a Pill Organizer

Number of Compartments

When looking for a pill organizer, you’ll want to consider the number of slots it has. The number of slots dictates how many days’ worth of medication you can store in the organizer at one time.

Most pill organizers have anywhere from 7 to 28 compartments, so choose accordingly.

Dual Slots

Dual pill slots are also becoming popular in pill organizers, which allow seniors to store their morning and evening medications in the same device.

This is a convenient feature, as it eliminates the need to use two separate pill organizers for morning and evening meds.

Compartment Size

When it comes to pill organizers, size does matter! The ideal pill organizer will have compartments that are large enough to store all of a senior’s required pill capsules and tablets without having to break them in half with a pill cutter.

Most seniors take several pills at once, therefore requiring a larger-sized pill organizer.

Text Size

Seniors with poor vision will want to look for a pill organizer that has text that is large and easy to read.

Most pill organizers feature the abbreviations for the days of the week on the front. Others just have one letter signaling each day of the week. Either way, just make sure the text is easy for the user to read and is large, clear, and uses contrasting colors (such as black text on a white or light-colored background).

Color

Some pill organizers come in bright colors, which can add a splash of fun to the boring task of taking medication.

A colorful pill organizer can also prevent the organizer from getting lost, misplaced, or mistaken with someone else’s medication collection.

Some pill organizers will even have different compartments as different colors, which may help a senior visualize between the day-of-the-week compartments, especially if they can’t read very well.

Stickers can also be a fun and handy solution to add distinction between day-of-the-week compartments.

Easy to Open

One of the most important features to consider when purchasing a pill organizer is its ease of use.

Pill organizers should always be easy to open and have compartments that dispense medication easily. Make sure the senior can open and close the medication compartments with ease. If they struggle to open the containers, they may neglect to take their medication at all!

Best Pill Organizers for Seniors

1. MedELert Automatic Locking Pill Dispenser

The MedELert Automatic Locking Pill Dispenser is a great choice for seniors who might be forgetful about taking their medication.

This high-tech pill organizer is different from others on this list as it functions as a monthly pill organizer as well as an automatic pill dispenser!

With most of the pill organizers for seniors featured on this list, the user has to manually open and dispense the pills. But this all-in-one pill holder does it all for you!

The MedELert Pill organizer features 28 pill compartments to cover you for the entire month, with each compartment designed to hold up to nine pills each.

The dispenser’s design relies on a simple three-button setup, which can easily be used to set the dosage times with the device’s large LED clock. There’s a lockable option too, which helps keeps perscription medications safe.

The MedElert Pill Dispenser has six different programmable alarms per day! This means you could potentially set the device to alert you for your morning meds, afternoon meds, and evening pills, with even more options for other times in the day!

This monthly pill organizer uses a dosage ring system, which allows you to choose how many separate pill compartments you’ll need each day. So for example, one dosage ring might be set up so that each day has a morning pill dispensing compartment and an evening pill dispensing compartment.

Keep in mind that your dosage ring will affect how many total days you can program your pills for.

So for example, if your monthly pill organizer has 28 compartments, but you’ll need to dedicate two compartments per day for a separate morning and evening pill dispensing schedule, then you’ll only be able to pre-program for up to 14 days. This system comes with six different dosage rings, allowing you to choose a pill schedule system that works for you!

The device even allows you to set up to three different alarm tones, which allows a senior to audibly distinguish between different medication alerts.

To dispense pills, you just need to rotate the pill dispenser upside down to dispense the pills, which will then stop the alarm.

2. Ezy Dose Weekly XL 7-Day Pill Organizer

The Ezy Dose Weekly pill organizer is a great simple choice for seniors who don’t need a high-tech option. This no-nonsense seven-day pill organizer features extra-large pill compartments, making it easy to fit several large pills in each slot.

In fact, each slot can hold up to 30 Aspirin-sized pills – that’s pretty impressive!

What we really love about this pill organizer though are the handy press buttons. The press button openings makes taking meds easy and frustration-free for anyone who struggles with arthritis. Just as many seniors prefer a press button can opener or an arthritis-friendly jar opener over a standard version, press buttons can be much easier for some seniors to use.

The day of the week abbreviations are large and clear, minimizing any risk of confusion. And, while this unit only has one compartment per day, there is another version of this pill dispenser from the manufacturer that offers two slots per day for AM and PM medication.

3. Ez Dose Weekly Pill Organizer

This Ez Dose Weekly Pill Organizer is a basic, no-frills pill organizer that’s affordable enough for any budget. With a simple design composed of seven pill compartments, it has you covered for each day of the week, along with clear, large letters for each day.

Each medium-sized pill compartment can hold up to 10 Aspirin tablets, 6 capsules, or two vitamin pills — perfect for multiple medications.

While this pill box lacks the bells and whistles of fancier, more expensive models, it gets the job done without breaking the bank.

4. Ezy Dose Weekly AM & PM

The Ezy Dose pill organizer is another top-notch pill organizer for seniors, with unique advantages for seniors who travel or occasionally sleep somewhere other than home.

This organizer offers an AM and PM compartments for each day. What’s really neat though is that this 7-Day pill planner boasts unique removable compartments. Just pop out a daily compartment set with the AM and PM slots and toss it in your go bag!

This product also features a small and large version of the organizer. The large version has compartments that each hold 25 Aspirin-sized tablets, fifteen capsules, or ten vitamins (which is especially ideal when you’re dealing with multiple medications).

5. Weekly Pill Organizer 3-Times-A-Day

The Weekly Pill Organizer 3-Times-A-Day is perfect for those who need to take their medication three times a day. The simple design has three pill box compartments per day, with different icons to mark each time of the day, and each day having a different colored tray.

The pill organizer can be taken on the go as well, since each dailyy pill tray can be removed.

6. 7-Sided Pill Box

For those who are looking for a pill organizer with a different look, this 7-Sided Large Pill Box is a solid pick.

With a unique heptagon shape, this container boasts seven pill compartments – one for each day of the week. The pill box is also designed with an easy open lid lip for each compartment, making it a cinch to get your medication in and out.

The pill capacity is solid, with each compartment able to hold 3 fish oil tablets, 6 capsules, or 12 Aspirin-sized pills. This makes it a great option for when you need to store multiple pills in one slot.

As a fun bonus, there are several color options to choose from, so you can find the perfect one to match your style! This unit comes in a 2-pack too, so you can have one for at home and one for on-the-go.

7. HRX Package Weekly Deep Capacity Pill Tray Organizer

The HRX Package Weekly Deep Capacity Pill Tray Organizer is our favorite option for seniors who need a basic pill organizer to take medication four times a day.

This pill organizer has four compartments for each day, labeled for morning, noon, evening, and bedtime. Additionally, each day of the week features a different colored tray- making it easy to keep track of which day it is.

Each set of four compartments has its own tray, making it super easy to travel with too!

8. TookMag Pill Organizer

While many of the pill organizers we feature in this guide are great for on-the-go, the TookMag Pill Organizer is our favorite for travel.

The round, palm-sized daily pill organizers are perfectly sized to fit in a purse or suitcase pocket. Each day of the week features its own pill container, with two compartments for AM and PM pill usage, complete with dedicated day and night icons.

Depsite being handy for travel, the pill compartments are sizable! Each organizer can hold 8 fish oils pills.

To top it all off, this pill organizer for seniors boasts seven color options, offering a nice change of pace from the standard black or white.

9. The Original Monthly Medication Organizer with Easy Set Reminder Clock by MedCenter

MedCenter System is a handy pill organizer that boasts a built-in talking reminder clock, making it a popular choice for forgetful seniors.

The organizer provides 31 pill boxes in a monthly format, with each daily pill box composed of four pill compartments (morning, noon, night, evening) that can hold up to 64 pills per day.

The date is prominently displayed on the front of each box, using a numbering system based on the date of the month, rather than the standard day of the week format, which can confuse some seniors.

What really brings this entire system together is the talking clock.

Functioning similar to a dementia-friendly talking clock for the elderly, the clock will alert users when it’s time to take their medication with a friendly female voice that can be programmed up to 4 times per day. The alert will remind the user the time of day, the date, and which dosage to take.

So, for example, the clock might read “Good evening! Please take your evening pills for the 14th.”

This is a great feature for seniors who may need a little help keeping on track with their pill schedule.

Automatic vs Manual Pill Dispensers

Most of the pill dispensers listed here are the manual variety — you need to open up the dispenser and take out the medication yourself.

However, if you’re looking for something a bit more all-in-one, you may want to consider an automatic version (check out our favorite automatic pill dispensers).

Automatic pill dispensers have their advantages and disadvantages. Obviously, they do all the work of dispensing your medication like clockwork.

However, they’re also much bigger, bulkier, and can be more of a hassle to organize. A caretaker might not mind organizing 30 days worth of pills in an automatic dispenser, but it would be quite the overwhelming task for some seniors to do themselves!

Manual pill dispensers are simple, smaller, and more compact for travel.

Which works best for you will depend largely on your preferences and needs.

---

As we age, it becomes increasingly important to stay on top of our medication schedule. This can be difficult if we’re forgetful or struggle with keeping track of time. That’s where pill organizers come in handy!

In this article, we’ve detailed the best pill organizers for seniors, based on a variety of factors such as number of compartments, dual AM and PM pill slots, design, and simplicity.

We hope this guide has helped you find the perfect pill box for yourself, or for an older loved one.

Any favorite pill organizers we missed? Let us know in the comments!

Last update on 2022-01-29 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API