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Bottle Cap Beeps and Glows, Reminds You to Take Your Pills

by Caleb Johnson on March 2, 2010 at 06:30 PM

The biggest obstacle in treating chronic health conditions would seem to be a simple one: getting patients to consistently take their medication. A new invention could effectively serve as a constant reminder to the patient. According to The Wall Street Journal, a St. Louis company will begin a small test trial next month of a high-tech pill bottle cap that emits light and sound in order to remind a patient to take his or her medicine.

The GlowCap, which is manufactured by Vitality, Inc., is screwed onto a pill bottle and communicates with a wireless transmitter that you plug into the wall. When it's time to take the medicine, the cap pulses with an orange light. After an hour, it starts beeping louder and louder. If you still haven't taken your meds, the device can make a phone call or send a text message to remind you. It can even be programmed to send e-mails or letters about your pill-taking habits to family members and doctors.

If the first trial is successful, Express Scripts, Inc. will conduct a larger one this summer that focuses on patients who are on medication for cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart failure. For these patients, taking pills consistently is crucial to their health. It's easy to forget to take a pill, and some folks are plain stubborn about doing it (ahem, Grandma). But the GlowCap could change that -- if the person can just figure out where that beeping noise is coming from. [From: The Wall Street Journal]

Tags: design, doctor, express scripts, ExpressScripts, health, heartdisease, highcholesterol, medicine, pills, top, wireless

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