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A Smart Pillbox To Improve Medication Compliance
Posted by
kdawson
on Sat Feb 09, 2008 04:02 PM
from the you-talkin-to-me dept.
from the you-talkin-to-me dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "A major challenge in public health is that people do not take their medications, a phenomenon known as 'medication non-adherence.' In the US alone, it is estimated that this accounts for 10% of all hospital visits and costs the healthcare system $100 billion per year and $60 billion to the pharmaceutical industry. Now, an MIT research team thinks it has a solution to this problem that will save lives worldwide. They've developed the uBox, a convenient, palm-sized, intelligent pill dispenser, 'which reminds a patient when it is time to take his medication, records when a patient has taken a dose, and prevents a patient from double-dosing.' The first large-scale trial with 100 uBoxes is scheduled to begin in May in Bihar, India, in a 6-month long tuberculosis treatment program."
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And How Does The Pillbox Know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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- one-third of people will take it correctly
- one-third of people will try and take it correctly, but will get it wrong
- one-third of people won't even try to take it correctly (e.g. not finish a course, not pick up the prescription)
I am sure the numbers are not so round but this was the repeated teaching at medical school and beyond.
As you say, unnecessary prescribing is a pain in the arse too. Often it is d
Re:And How Does The Pillbox Know... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:And How Does The Pillbox Know... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would buy one of these devices in an instant if it handled inhaled meds.
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Non-compliance with a condition is grounds for exclusion of coverage with most insurances. You can not take the pills all you like, but if it jibbers you up you're paying the bills.
I'd say thats a bit of motivation, although a problem is sleazier insurances will avoid mentioning this fact when people mention "oh my doctor has me on this, but I don't take it".
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I'd be interested in statistics on this matter... I know one — otherwise meticulous — elderly woman, who only takes the prescribed medicines, when she has acute pain (the prescription is for regular use). I have heard of others...
I'm sure, some people just forget (especially, if they are on anti-memory loss medication, ha-ha), but I'm not at all certain, they represent the vast majority of "nonad
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And how does the pillbox know that you actually took the pill, as opposed to taking it out of the pillbox so that it will quit nagging you?
And how does it know that the pill you just took out didn't fall in the sewer and that you need another one right now?
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Lots of people stop taking their meds because they don't like the side effects (but can't be bothered to mention it to their doctor because after all they don't feel so bad from their original condition when they are of
A Smart box (Score:3, Insightful)
Why uBox? (Score:3, Funny)
Costs ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Did they want to say brings ?
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Did they want to say brings ?
No, they mean costs. Did you really think that pharmaceutical companies could make profit off healing and saving people? Of course not, but they do it anyways, because if they weren't there, then who would make all these medicines for us? That's right, they do it all because they care about us and they want us to be alive and well, even if it's going to cost them hundreds of billion dollars every year.
Think about it next time you consider buying Pfizer stock [google.com].
Re:Costs ? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd love something that works (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably Third-World Only (Score:3, Insightful)
Doubtful (Score:2)
If your logic held true, we wouldn't have electronic blood sugar meters either.
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I feel bad saying it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I feel bad saying it (Score:4, Insightful)
And even if we stipulate that certain people don't "deserve" treatment, does that mean that the rest of us deserve the antibiotic-resistant strains of TB that result from people missing their doses?
-Peter
Parent
And this is better how? (Score:3, Insightful)
If we cant make it an 'i-something or other' and give it an IP address its of no value? Sure, technology has its place, but sometimes just common sense is all that is needed. When a hammer is all you need, bring a hammer, don't re-invent it just for the sake of inventing.
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1. First, SHE is the one that has to fill them, and with so many different meds it's easy for her to make
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There are probably a zillion different solutions if you personally want to make certain you take pills when you should in the proper quantity.
But this is meant less to be an electronic counterpart to a pillbox, and more an electronic counterpart to a conscientious mother.
Already exists (Score:5, Informative)
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If this is all they're doing at MIT these days all I can say is that in my days....
Doesn't Solve The Other Problem (Score:2)
Memory is not the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
This mentality is a lot more prevalent than I would have thought prior to working in travel medical insurances. The number of people who would get angry because we had to count them as treating a condition because they had a specific prescription on their history but they refused to take it was staggering. Somehow, it then becomes our fault that they have an exclusion because they were not complying with the prescribed treatment.
To get Dickens on it: Given that non-compliance is generating these costs, i'm guessing its also generating casualties, which means the tendancy will eventually be minimized across the gene pool.
Wish that helped my generations health costs though.
Protips: If you disagree with your doctor, that is what second, third,
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My apologies to the grammarstapo.
Great, too bad it's illegal (Score:5, Insightful)
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How come you people don't break out in derisive laughter when you hear your country described as the "land of the free"?
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In Florida a man was given the minimum sentence of 25 years for having 56 viccodin, of the 80 he was prescribed, in a valid bottle. Because, in Florida at least, any more than 50 is automatic guilt in drug trafficking. Having a valid prescription is not an exception, and the defense attorney was not permitted to even mention his valid prescription to the jury. The judge ruled that since the law does not mention prescriptions, that knowledge would be distracting and irrelevant. As a convicted drug traff
A technological solution to a behavioral problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
The batteries will never run out, the thing will never be badly programmed, the patient will never ignore it, nor forget it, and the workers checking up on them will always be diligent and honest. That's why it's gonna work!
I'd use this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyhow. Yeah. I'd actually use this.
Say what you will... (Score:3, Insightful)
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Usually not, and in any case it can be a long time before anybody realises what the problem actually is, by which time damage may have been done. Also over medicating, or taking pills at the wrong frequency is also a major problem that this thing is trying to address.
Having said that, I don't think a hi-tech solution like this is a necessary answer for most people. We'd go a long way towards preventing these problems simply by printing readable labels on med boxes that are easily distinguishable for peo
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I wonder if they used the logic that 10% of hospital visits = 10% of the healthcare industry, because wouldn't that be neglecting the nature of the visits? I would assume that the 10% of hospital visits resulting from forgetting to take pills would have a greater chance of being taken care of fairly easily... Like, "ok here are your meds and a cup of water". Sure, some problems will be more serious, but still.
You can't be serious. many medications have dire consequences if missed.
Forgot your heart med
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Oh the irony.
It wont stop you from throwing the tab away (Score:2)
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A law requiring you to do what's best for you, after you have paid insurance exactly for that purpose. Why is it that this law doesn't seem such a bad thing?
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Why is it that you can't see what's wrong with that scenario?
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Because we don't know what is best. MDs are hardly infallible, can't always be on the spot, and are under enormous pressure to overmedicate. Sell more pills that way, and keeps them covered in case of a lawsuit. We still have much to learn about medication. For instance, grapefruit magnifies the power of a great deal of medicine. It is quite possible for half the dosage with grapefruit to be as good as a full dose without.
I'm wondering if the pharmaceutical industry's "losses" are because people aren
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