Design And Construction Of A Patient Medication Reminder

ABSTRACT

We are all so busy with our daily lives that we forget to take our medicines on time, which can have several ill effects on our health. The circuit described here helps in making a simple reminder that allows you to set an alert for the medicines that you need to take. The device flashes an LED or rings a buzzer at the selected time intervals. The available time intervals are matched with standard dosing times such as 4, 6, 8, 12, 24 and 48 hours for your convenience.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION
• AIM/OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
• LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
• APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT
• BENEFIT OF THE PROJECT
• SCOPE OF THE PROJECT
• PROJECT MOTIVATION
• PROJECT ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER TWO

2.0     LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1     REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS

2.2     REVIEW OF 8051 MICRO CONTROLLER

2.3      MICRO CONTROLLERS – 8051 PIN DESCRIPTION

2.4     MICRO CONTROLLERS – 8051 PORTS

2.5     OVERVIEW OF LCD (LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY)

CHAPTER THREE

3.0     CONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY

3.1      SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM

3.2      DESCRIPTION OF SYSTEM BLOCK

3.3      SYSTEM CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

3.4      SYSTEM OPERATION

3.5      SYSTEM FLOW CHAT

3.5      CIRCUIT DESIGN OF THE SYSTEM

3.6      POWER SUPPLY

CHAPTER FOUR

RESULT ANALYSIS

4.0      CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE AND TESTING

4.1      CASING AND PACKAGING

4.2      ASSEMBLING OF SECTIONS

4.3      TESTING OF SYSTEM OPERATION

4.4      COST ANALYSIS

CHAPTER FIVE

5.1      CONCLUSION

5.2      RECOMMENDATION

5.3      REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

1.1                                                        INTRODUCTION

Patient adherence has gained increased recognition for its essential role in treatment efficacy. Failure to follow the recommendations of healthcare providers limits the achievement of therapeutic goals. Since the first patient adherence studies in 1968, numerous attempts have been made to understand, predict, and ultimately enhance patient adherence to medical recommendations. Inadequate adherence contributes to morbidity and mortality and raises healthcare expenditure, although the nature of this relationship may be more complex than originally thought. This is a significant and widespread issue in a population that is increasingly reliant on complex pharmacologic therapy. Up to 30%–50% of patients are expected to demonstrate poor adherence to medication use, regardless of disease process, prognosis, or background. With a significant number of patients relying upon pharmacologic treatment of chronic health conditions, failure to adhere to optimal treatment regimens may adversely affect both patient outcomes and healthcare costs.

Adherence is a relatively recent term that has replaced the notion of compliance when describing patient medication-taking behaviors. Compliance is defined as the degree to which actual patient drug administration corresponds to the prescribed treatment regimen; integral to this definition is the assumption that medical advice confers benefit to the patient, or that rational behavior dictates necessitate obedience to medical advice. A broader definition also encompasses the extent to which behaviors such as lifestyle modifications or diets concur with medical advice. Compliance may also be measured by outcome-oriented definitions, in which the number of prescribed doses taken may determine whether a therapeutic result is achieved. Yet the term is associated with complaisance; the compliant patient submits to their doctor’s directives, while the noncompliant patient appears disobedient. The passive connotations that the term compliance assigns to the patients’ role in the healthcare process has led to a decline in its use.

Adherence has gained popularity as an alternative descriptor because it implies a more reciprocal dynamic in the doctor- patient relationship and recognizes salient influences on medication-taking behavior. However, multiple studies assessed in this analysis use the term compliance to describe medication-taking behaviors amongst study participants. Because of its prevalence in the literature, compliance was incorporated into this analysis. Yet the distinction between compliance and adherence is important; patient motivations must be taken into account to fully explain patterns of medication usage. The determinants of adherence are complex. Studies of adherence modifiers, such as those analyzing reminder systems, focus on the multifaceted motivations behind medication-taking behavior. Barriers to adherence vary widely, and include concerns about efficacy, fear of side effects, inconvenience, a poor doctor-patient relationship, lack of social support, patient motivation, or incorrect education regarding proper use. Research regarding the theoretical groundwork of adherence, impediments, facilitators, and interventions serve to highlight its complexity and the practical difficulties of improving adherence in a patient population. Over 200 variables influencing compliance, such as socioeconomic factors and disease pathology, have been studied since 1975, yet none have demonstrated a consistent link with adherence rates. Furthermore, studies of adherence vary significantly in methodology, patient population, disease processes, treatment regimens, and definition of adherence. The variation in study context and measurement is likely to account for significant disparities of observed adherence outcomes. Measures of adherence vary between studies; some use outcome oriented measures, others use a predetermined percent of doses taken to categorize patients as adherent or non-adherent, while some measure adherence more fluidly, reporting the overall percentage of total doses taken.

Patient adherence has substantial implications in preventative medicine and the treatment of chronic disease. It is a key component of successful medical management; an understanding of patient adherence and its modulating factors is crucial to interpreting treatment efficacy and barriers to therapeutic success. Non-adherence increases financial burdens on healthcare systems and leads to unnecessary pharmacologic and diagnostic interventions. Adherence is the fundamental link between intent and outcome of medical care.

Interventions aimed at improving adherence attempt to maximize successful healthcare delivery. There are various stages of the healthcare process that provide potential for poor adherence. These include failure to seek early or preventative care, attend follow-up appointments, fill prescriptions, follow physician instructions, use correct doses or timing, continue treatment for the full duration, or refill prescriptions. In many instances, non-adherence is unintentional, but patient beliefs may also contribute to intentional deviation from prescribed treatment plans. Ultimately, however, patient decisions regarding treatments are likely to reflect their own beliefs and personal circumstances. In addition to encouraging patient adherence to prescribed medications, healthcare providers should attempt to contribute to the patient’s decision-making process. Three categories of adherence-enhancing strategies have been defined: enabling, consequence, and stimulant. Enabling strategies arm patients with the tools necessary for adherence, and include patient education, simplified medication regimens, cost-effective therapies, and access to medical care and prescriptions. Consequence strategies aim to reinforce adherence by providing incentives for acceptable adherence. Stimulant strategies are aimed at prompting dose-taking. Examples include electronic reminders, environmental cues, peer support, and special packaging or organizers to encourage correct and timely medication usage. Stimulant strategies may have a synergistic effect when combined with enabling strategies to enhance adherence to home medication use. Methods of measuring adherence varied amongst studies. There is no gold standard measurement of adherence, and this complicates our ability to uniformly quantify adherence. Both direct and indirect measures have been utilized in an attempt to measure medication usage. Direct measures, such as serum or urine drug levels, are more challenging, invasive, expensive, and have limited applications. Their use is restricted to hospitalized patients receiving single-dose, intermittent therapies. These methods may likewise discount individual pharmacokinetic and metabolic variations.

Indirect measures, which are utilized in the majority of patient adherence studies, include patient medication diaries, interviews, pill counts, prescription filling dates, electronic monitoring devices, and therapeutic or preventative outcome measures. Electronic monitoring devices, such as MEMS (medication event monitoring system), enable measurement of both frequency and timing of medication dosing. They have also revealed the phenomenon of “white coat adherence,” where medication usage significantly increases immediately prior to doctor appointments. MEMS themselves have been postulated to stimulate adherence because they provide evidence of true medication usage, and could be considered a less obtrusive reminder device than phone calls or text messages.

The extent of the relationship between treatment adherence and treatment outcomes has yet to be fully elucidated. Understanding the connection between adherence and certain moderating factors, such as patient beliefs, disease features, or therapeutic regimens, is essential to identifying determinants of treatment outcomes and designing methods to improve patient adherence. Interventions have included the use of reminder mechanisms to maximize medication adherence. In this study we examined the effect of reminders on patient medication adherence using meta-analysis to integrate research findings with statistical analysis of multiple studies. Reminders are one extensively-studied adherence-enhancing strategy. Such reports have provided conflicting evidence for the efficacy of reminder systems in improving adherence to medication usage. The success of reminders is likely to be heavily dependent on other complex determinants of medication usage, such as medication type, patient population, or disease process. We attempt to quantify the correlation between reminder interventions and quantity of adherence, or number of doses taken over a period of time, in order to better assess the overall significance of this intervention

The reminder systems in this review target “treatment” or “secondary” non-adherence, which is the failure to correctly utilize prescribed treatment plans. Patient non-adherence may be intentional, in which the patient purposefully declines to take a medication for reasons that appear rational when subject to analyses; such reasons may include incorrect diagnosis or prescription, development of side effects or adverse reactions, or awareness of a change in one’s disease process. Reminder systems largely target unintentional non-adherence but may also diminish intentional non-adherence by providing patients with feedback while appealing to a desire to appear adherent when use is scrutinized by an outside party. The use of patient reminders has been extensively studied as one method of improving adherence to behavioral, lifestyle, and pharmacologic treatment regimens. Reminders provide recurrent cues, encouragement, or motivation for patients to adhere to medical recommendations, but it is unclear whether their function differs in daily medication usage versus lifestyle modifications or preventative healthcare. Our analysis specifically assesses the use of reminders in influencing adherence to daily medication use.

1.2                                        AIM/OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

Automatic reminder for medicine is a useful to all hospitals. Now a day’s the most of the patents are forgot to take the medicine at the proper time. The time and medicine names are changeable according to our need through keypad connected. Is has a real time clock IC to display the timings in the LCD display

1.3                                              PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

Patient adherence is an important component of the treatment of chronic disease. An understanding of patient adherence and its modulating factors is necessary to correctly interpret treatment efficacy and barriers to therapeutic success. The purpose of this work is to design a reminding device to assist patient adherence to prescribed medications.

1.4                                         SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

Every year, thousands of patients are placed in nursing homes because they did not take the right medication at the right time. Medication mix-ups are extremely dangerous. A medication reminder and organizer can help to prevent these life-threatening mistakes. They remind your loved one to take the right medication at the right time. Medication reminders are an important piece of any aging in place plan.

1.5                                                 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

A patient can store respective time for taking a particular medicine through a matrix keypad. Based on the RTC (Real Time Clock) interfaced to a microcontroller, the programmed time for the medicine is displayed on the LCD display along with a buzzer sound to alert the patient about taking the appropriate medicine. The microcontroller used in this project is of 8051 family. The RTC is used to maintain accurate time as it is supported by a crystal.

1.6                                               BENEFIT OF THE PROJECT

• Prevent Errors

It is easy for patients to take the wrong meds or even skip doses. Medication reminders prevent this from happening. There is nothing your senior has to read or figure out. They simply need to take the pills in the compartment after the reminder beeps.

Medication Reminder comes with a 48-hour rechargeable battery backup. If the power ever fails, you will know that your loved one will still be able to take their meds. The back-up battery is also useful for travel, so your senior can safely take their meds on the go.

• Easy to Use

Labels on pill bottles and other medication dispensers are often difficult to read for your patients aging eyes. A medication dispenser eliminates the need for your loved one to read that small print.

The Medication Reminder  is designed with ease of use in mind. It has an extra-large LED display, and is as simple to set as a digital clock. When the reminder beeps, your senior takes the meds inside the compartment. It’s as simple as that.

1.7                                          APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT

1. This device is mostly used in hospitals for reminding nurses the time to give treatment to their patients.
2. It is also used by patients at home for reminding them time for their doses to avoid skipping their doses.

iii. It can also be used by individual to remind them of their daily schedules.

1.8                                                  PROJECT MOTIVATION

Looking in to the data we found that most of the deaths are caused due to negligence of patient or caretaker some patients couldn’t afford a care taker. So taking care of the cost effectiveness we came up with the idea to make a Pill reminder which is low on cost and easy to be handled by an average intelligent patient

1.9                                                 FUTURE DEVELOPMENT

This project in future can be enhanced by integrating it with GSM technology, so that the patient receives a reminder via SMS on his/her cell phone about the medicine he/she has to take. Also a provision to change the name of medicine can be incorporated by interfacing the device with a PC or EEPROM (non-volatile memory).