One of the largest challenges for drug manufactures is ensuring safe and effective medication use. Older adults are four times more likely to experience an adverse drug reaction (ADR) than younger people. Labeling is a crucial strategy in the prevention of adverse effects related to OTC medication use. Leveraging insights garnered from years of research in food packaging, we proposed a novel label design for OTC medications, utilizing a small box which includes drug drug and drug diagnosis indications on the front of the package (an FOP label). To test the efficacy of the strategy, we employed a change detection methodology, commonly employed in the field of visual psychology. Two main objectives framed our work: (1) to determine if older adults would be more accurate and faster in finding changes to an FOP than comparable changes to existing commercial standards for labeling, and (2) whether they would be more accurate and faster in finding changes to highlighted information than comparable changes that were not highlighted. Sixty older adults (65+) were recruited to participate. Results suggest that the presence of an FOP did not impact either the accuracy of the ability to find the information or the time to find it. By contrast, there was a significant difference in detecting critical information when treatments that were highlighted were compared to those that were not (p<0.0001) although there was no significant effect of highlighting on the time participants took to find the changes.
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