Intelligent tablet (pill) packaging for medication regimes

Most people who take a lot of pills/medications either own elaborate pill boxes or have their medications prepared in special blister packages so they can track their use. After an initial period of hypervigilance, it can be easy to lose track of whether or not you took your pill two hours ago.

Holst Centre (a Belgian/Dutch collaborative, independent, and open innovation R&D [research and development] centre) and Qolpac (a pharmaceutical packaging company) are developing a new, intelligent type of packaging for medications. Here’s what the July 17, 2012 news item on Nanowerk has to say about it,

Smart blisters are pharmaceutical packages capable of monitoring when a pill is taken out of its packaging. Qolpac and Holst Centre have jointly developed a technology that integrates an ultra-low-power processor and radio into a thin plastic foil that could replace the standard backing foil of a blister package. Drawing on Qolpac’s expertise in therapy adherence solutions, the two partners will further develop this technology for mass-market use. This includes finding suppliers and manufacturers capable of supporting a high-volume application.

I can certainly understand how helpful it would be to know when the pill was removed from the package (e.g., knowing a pill was removed two hours ago tells me I took it the pill at 10 am so I can now take my 12 pm pill with confidence). Still, this is one more piece of life being monitored and, sometimes, it seems as if every activity (breathing, sweating, blinking, etc.)  will be. It reminds of the koan, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear, does it make a sound? But, I’m changing it to this:: if we start monitoring all our activities and no one is there to notice, do we really exist?

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