Almost half of all Americans on prescription drugs forget to take their medications. As the number of medical problems and pills increase, the problem gets much worse. An aging population, in conjunction with decreased mental acuity, presents quite a challenge in remembering to take multiple medication at various times.. Many devices in the past haven’t been practical or were to expensive for the consumer market.
Renovating Your Mind brings you the various electronic gadgets available or coming out in the near future that will prompt us to take our pills. In addition, another device will tell us when our medications have expired visually. Today’s briefs will describe these technological wonders.
Cadex Watch
This device looks like a wristwatch but it does so much more. It has of course the date, time listed of when you need to ingest your medication. It tells you the strength of the medication, the number of pills to take, the dosing schedule and it keeps prompting you. Even when it had already prompted it will prompt again. This makes sure the initial prompt was acted upon and not forgotten. It can tell you the time to inject insulin with the type of insulin, quantity of units, dosing schedule and will record when you actually perform the activity. It can signal you for up to twelve different medications and insulin.
Target Pharmacy’s Innovative Bottle Design
In 2005, Target started it all with their highly visual bottles. The print is large with a very prominent understandable font. The information on the label is not overwhelming. The priority was visual recognition for the right medication for the right patient. They have the best informative labeling color-coded for prescription drugs in the United States today. The color-coding helps to prevent medication and patient mixup in the home.
IDEOS’s Design On
Has designed packaging to let you know if the medication has expired (past expiration date). Rotting fruit is one example of what is displayed on the vial label if the drug should be discarded. Similar to how a piece of fruit goes beyond ripe to rotten. Think banana with black spots, apple with dark marks or potato with green spots. So a visual reminder on bottle labeling on when to trash and get new medication from the pharmacy.
AdhereTech’s Smart Bottle
This creative technology measures the weight of the bottle before the patient picks up the medication. It knows the exact weight of the dose whether it be liquid, capsules or tablets. The bottles will glow if a dose is missed. In addition, it will notify the patient by phone or text message if a dose was not taken that day. This is the most innovative technology of the group. It is called their “Smart Pill Bottles.” So this can have both a visual and auditory reminders.
Micro-Medication Embedded Digital Sensor
Proteus Digital Health Inc. has designed a tiny sensor composed of essential minerals that can track compliance through the patient, caretaker or physician. Sensors are smaller than a grain a rice and inserted into the tablet during the drug production. The patient wears a strip on the skin to receive the data from the sensor and from there the data is monitored.
On a personal note, my compliance on taking a daily supplement is difficult for me. Would seriously consider one of these devices if I was taking multiple prescription medications. Target Pharmacy is a great place to start because of their revolutionary design.
Categories: Health, Medications, Science-Technology
Renovating Your Mind 
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