The ever-increasing percentage of the U.S. population who are 65 years or over presents a special problem to physicians and pharmacists: how to ensure that elderly people, who may suffer from memory impairments, will comply with a medication regimen. The target of opportunity in this proposal is to develop a miniature computer device that will signal a variety of alarms at prescribed times, simultaneously displaying concise and easy-to-understand instructions on the quantity and type of medication to be taken by its owner. A physician or pharmacist will use any of several commercially available personal computers to store a prescription schedule in the miniature device. The proposed device will be small enough for an elderly person to comfortably wear around the wrist.
Specific aims i n Phase I include: design and coding of the control software, simulation of the device in software, design of the hardware, prototyping the hardware, integration of hardware and software and design of a Phase II proof-of-concept and evaluation program.
