Innovative and future oriented automatic medication dispenser for older adults

• Autor(a) principal: Veloso, João Gonçalo Furtado de Albuquerque
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10773/31264
• topic: Automatic medication dispenser; Medication non adherence; Older adults; Geriatrics; Product development

The population is getting older due to higher life expectancy and lower birth rates. Medication is becoming a bigger part of older adults’ lives. However, as all people do, it is easy to forget to take medication. This forgetfulness can bring a lot of consequences, specially in older adults. This is because of their more fragile health and the complexities in their medication, resulting in lower quality of life and higher number of hospital visits. Non adherence to medication is cause by 3 main factors: patient factors, medication factors and health care providers factors. These intertwine adding to the complexity of the problem, however they can be fixed. Technological solutions were developed along the years, some academically and some are available in the current market. Nevertheless, as all solution, there is always room for improvement. This document sets out to collect the needs of older adults regarding their medication and review current developed systems, in order to idealize an innovative system capable of meeting the needs of older adults while improving current systems. This took a systematic approach, mixing adequate product development methodologies, linear and more traditional, State-Gate, and cyclical and more innovative, Lean. This resulted in a idealization of a future proof system that tries to tackle the non adherence problem as whole. From this idealization it was possible to develop and build a prototype that demonstrates its main functionalities.