A Smart Pill Dispenser to support Elderly People in Medication Adherence

Recently, the average age of the population is growing up creating a large community of elderly people in modern societies. This phenomenon is due to several aspects, like the general improvement of people’s lifestyle, the adoption of digital assistance systems and the increasing progress in science, research, medicine and technology fields. Some studies, in fact, state that in 2040 more than 50% of people will be over 60 years old. In addition, as the rate of cognitive diseases of all degrees increase with age, some kind of support to the elders in daily activities such as home maintenance and respecting the medication adherence is needed. The proposed system is a smart dispenser of pills equipped with a mobile application able to support both elderly people and unformal caregivers every day. In the case of a specific event, such as a shortage of medication or non-adherence, the event is transmitted immediately to the appropriate user. The goal is to ensure the patient adherence and a continuous monitoring by the unformal caregiver. In addition to the description of the proposed system architecture, a system validation through a proof-of-concept and a description of the physical prototype is also included.