Improving oral medication compliance with an electronic aid

Demographic trends indicate that populations in the U.S., Europe, and Japan are aging rapidly. As people age, they will seek more health-care services and ingest more oral medications. Poor compliance in taking medications is especially problematic in the elderly because of the changes in their metabolism, cognitive skills, and physical abilities. Simple devices, special packaging, and physical aids, while offering some improvement, do not appear able to answer this challenge. Drawbacks to such mechanical devices include their inability to accommodate multiple medications, their inability to remind patients when to take their medications, their inability to be easily reprogrammed for different dosage regimens, and their higher packaging costs. Electronic medication compliance dispensers, such as the MedMinder, appear to address many of these issues, but their true utility awaits definitive results from further development and clinical field trials.