Laundry pods pose a lethal risk to adults with dementia because the capsules can be mistaken for sweets, a coroner has warned.
The alert was issued by North London coroner Ian Potter after a 93-year-old woman died after biting into a brightly-coloured detergent pod.
Retired nurse Elizabeth Van Der Drift, who had dementia, mistook the capsule for a bag of sweets while living in assisted accommodation in London.
She died in hospital on March 19 this year after being admitted with stomach pain and shortness of breath.
An inquest heard that the laundry packaging “bore more than a passing resemblance to a bag of sweets”.
Mr Potter issued a prevention of future deaths alert to the Office for Product Safety and Standards warning more deaths could follow unless action is taken.
He said: “The employment of eye-catching and bright colours appears to be an industry-wide phenomenon.
“It has long been acknowledged that products of this nature can pose risks to children; however, there appears to be less acknowledgement of the risks posed to those living with dementia or other forms of cognitive impairment.
“In terms of the laundry tablets/pods themselves, I note that these have a jelly-like appearance and again I regard them as being colourful and potentially sweet-like in their appearance. This again has the serious potential to render a highly toxic/hazardous product as appealing to those with dementia or other cognitive impairment, as well as children.
“There is a wealth of material available to document the relatively frequency that products of this nature are accidentally or inadvertently ingested.”
Mrs Van Der Drift, remembered by her family as a “free and generous spirit”, trained as a nurse after witnessing the devastating Dutch famine during the 1944 German occupation in which many thousands starved to death.
She moved to London in the 1960s and worked across a number of hospitals in the capital as a dedicated nurse.
She lived in sheltered housing at Esther Randall Court, Regent’s Park, where her dementia meant she often could not recall when she last consumed food and she would go in search of something to eat.
Mr Potter said: “The overarching concern here is that laundry tablets/pods and their packaging are being produced in a way that, by virtue of their bright colouring, appearance, and packaging, are being confused with food by people living with dementia or other cognitive impairment.
“The issue is, in my opinion, compounded when one considers that the products themselves are far from innocuous in the event of their accidental ingestion.
“In this case, I also noted that there was no obvious design feature, in terms of the packaging, that makes accessing the content particularly difficult for someone with even the most basic of manual dexterity. In my view, this only adds to the risks.”