Ben Heck’s Pill-Minder 2000 Episode -- Episode 237

I've alway enjoyed your episodes Ben. Over the last few months I've had to deal with my mother who has worsening dementia and had to be put in assisted living. Before assisted care my mother was up and down at all times and did not know what day of the week or time it was. The simplicity of your design is of key importance because dementia makes even simple tasks confusing. The other people have made valid points but your idea still has merit because it can be extended to suit different situations. I'm sure there are pill boxes that meet the different requirements. In my mother's case, she had to take certain pills before and after each meal. A quick Google search came up with a multitude of pill boxes. Here is an example of a box that would have suited my mother's prescriptions.

To keep the design simple, as you have, all that would have to be done is put the LEDs below the transparent pill cases. To take this idea even further, as prescriptions typically change over time, one could make individual compartments that have the LED built in. The boxes plug into each other by the number of times pills are taken each day.

I should point out that loading the pillbox is probably too complicated for seniors suffering from mild dementia in either scenario you gave. Ideally an ap would be developed that uses a smartphone camera to read bar-codes on the pill bottles and reads the instructions so that a far-sighted person, such as is typical of 40 something child caring for an aging senior, can read the instructions. The person filling the pillbox would scan the pill bottle and a light would come on for the box or boxes to be filled. As the pill is dropped into the pill box the light goes off. For this reason it is important to solve the resolution issue you ran into as it isn't uncommon for seniors to have several dozen pills to take every day (I'll keep off my soapbox about how seniors are overmedicated. At one point my mother was on 18 drugs and a hospital nurse told her she was practically taking nothing compared to most seniors).

I've alway enjoyed your episodes Ben. Over the last few months I've had to deal with my mother who has worsening dementia and had to be put in assisted living. Before assisted care my mother was up and down at all times and did not know what day of the week or time it was. The simplicity of your design is of key importance because dementia makes even simple tasks confusing. The other people have made valid points but your idea still has merit because it can be extended to suit different situations. I'm sure there are pill boxes that meet the different requirements. In my mother's case, she had to take certain pills before and after each meal. A quick Google search came up with a multitude of pill boxes. Here is an example of a box that would have suited my mother's prescriptions.

To keep the design simple, as you have, all that would have to be done is put the LEDs below the transparent pill cases. To take this idea even further, as prescriptions typically change over time, one could make individual compartments that have the LED built in. The boxes plug into each other by the number of times pills are taken each day.

I should point out that loading the pillbox is probably too complicated for seniors suffering from mild dementia in either scenario you gave. Ideally an ap would be developed that uses a smartphone camera to read bar-codes on the pill bottles and reads the instructions so that a far-sighted person, such as is typical of 40 something child caring for an aging senior, can read the instructions. The person filling the pillbox would scan the pill bottle and a light would come on for the box or boxes to be filled. As the pill is dropped into the pill box the light goes off. For this reason it is important to solve the resolution issue you ran into as it isn't uncommon for seniors to have several dozen pills to take every day (I'll keep off my soapbox about how seniors are overmedicated. At one point my mother was on 18 drugs and a hospital nurse told her she was practically taking nothing compared to most seniors).