Real-time wireless compliance monitoring system using calendar-type pill organizer.

BACKGROUND: Accurate information about patients' use of medication is crucially important for medical treatment. Real-time information can prevent treatment failure resulting from medication delays or failures. OBJECTIVE: In this study, a compliance-monitoring system is developed for physicians to ascertain their patients' drug-taking behaviors at home in real time. Its operation is then evaluated. METHODS: The authors produced a device that uses wireless communication to notify a physician that drugs are taken out of a package by a patient. The device has sensors to detect the package opening. A wireless module is installed in a drug-containing calendar-type pill organizer. RESULTS: Experimental trials confirmed that a physician can monitor the kind and number of drugs removed from the package on a real-time basis. Furthermore, a practical system can be produced by measuring the distance and consumption current of the produced device, which allows wireless communication. CONCLUSIONS: This system enables a doctor to intervene immediately when any compliance lapse occurs, thereby preventing treatment failure caused by delayed response.

Compliance monitoring system using screen printing technology based on conductive ink.

We developed a compliance monitoring system that electrically detects which drug among the multiple prescribed drugs a patient has taken and the date of drug-taking by a patient to prevent the patient from missing doses and taking drugs incorrectly at home. A conductive pattern is screen printed using conductive ink (silver paste) on the surface of a calendar-type pill organizer containing medications for as long as 1 week (4 times per day × 7 days, 28 doses) to create a sensor for detecting the opening of a pill organizer. Whenever the patient opens the pill organizer and removes a dose of the drug (pill), information about which of the 28 locations is opened and the date of opening are recorded in nonvolatile memory. This system is applicable to patients who take multiple drugs, for whom recording of drug-taking behavior is reportedly difficult. Specific benefits are that the user needs no additional manipulation to use the system: the user can take the drug from the pill organizer according to usual procedures.