The Rise of Pill Dispensers

The issues with not taking medication properly

Many people do not take their medication prescriptions the way they are supposed to. Between forgetting to take a dosage, to overtaking the medication, and doing it for weeks to months at a time, it has become a serious problem in the medical field.

When patients don’t take the medications properly, it can lead to a wide variety for both doctors and patients alike. As far as the patient goes, forgetting to take pills or forgetting they took them and taking them again can make medical conditions even worse. In some cases, depending on the medication and the condition, it may even be fatal.

For doctors, their patients not sticking to their treatment plan taking medications the way they were directed to is frustrating and makes their job much harder to do. A doctor’s goal is to keep their patient safe, happy, and healthy at all times, so poor medication compliance is challenging for them to achieve that goal. It can also cause a loss of money and resources as well. Medical treatment and medications are expensive, and often in limited quantities, so if they are not being taken as directed, it creates a large issue.

Why automatic pill dispensers came to be

Therefore, the rise of automatic pill dispensers has become much more popular over the recent years. Pill dispensers have been around for some time, but they have not been technologically advanced. At most, oil dispensers would be long rectangle containers with seven different compartments with lids. The person taking the medication would fill each little slot with the pills they needed to take for that day of the week.

While this is helpful, it does nothing to remind the patient when they need to take their pills or at what time they need to take them. It is still fully up to the patient alone to remember when they need to take them, which is often challenging in older age or if someone is living a busy on the go lifestyle.

Tt was imperative a solution be found to combat this issue. Patients needed something to help them not only remember to take their medication, but what time they needed it, and how much they to take at a time. A system that would allow for physical reminders and notifications was necessary and with so much technological advancements, it became a reality.

Pill dispensers as of today

Today, we have a wide variety of automatic pill dispensers and they can all do a variety of things depending on which brands are bought. However, for the most part, these pill dispensers are able to sort medications, dispense then at certain times of the day in the exact dosage, and remind patients when they need to take it.

Reminders can happen in a series of ways. Some dispensers may flash, deep or make another type of sound, or some can even connect directly with a smartphone app or smartwatch, so the notification directly reaches the patient at the exact time they need to take their medications.

These types of systems make compliance so much easier for patients and make it easier for doctors to treat their patients in the most effective and efficient way possible.

The future of pill dispensers

In the future, we can only expect that automatic pill dispensers are going to become even more complex, useful, and technologically advanced. The medical profession is always looking for ways to ensure that people are taking their medications exactly the way they are supposed to, and with the help of automatic pill dispensers and other similar technologies, we hope that things will only continue to grow and improve in the right direction.