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.......Welcome to the Medalarm
website! Medalarm is an electronic device
initially conceived of in 1984 by a medical
doctor because of his observations regarding the
unacceptably poor levels of adherence by patients
to their prescribed drug regimens. Results from
the use of a medication vary widely for many
reasons and as such it is part of the
responsiblity of the physician who has prescribed
the medication to monitor the patient to ensure
that the medication is indeed achieving the
intended results. One of the crucial assumptions
necessary for evaluating the effectiveness of any
medication is obviously that the medication is
being taken constantly and consistently as
prescribed. Failure of the patient to adhere to
the prescribed dosage schedule is known as noncompliance
and this is a well known
reason why a usually very effective medication
does not achieve that which is intended.
Non-compliance
occurs for various reasons.
.......Some patients have
multiple medical problems necessitating a
veritable pharmacy of daily medications. The
daily task of simply trying to remember which
medication to take and when becomes an
overwhelming chore. Many patients who must take
medications are elderly and sadly their memory is
failing. Even younger patients simply forget
because of a busy schedule. Sometimes there is a
miscommunication between doctor and patient.
Patients even confuse one medicine for another;
sometimes taking one drug too often and another
too infrequently. The reasons for poor compliance
are numerous, but the implications are the same.
Poor compliance translates into ineffective
treatment and thus poor outcomes. Studies
have shown as much as 60% of patients miss doses
of their medication(s). Obviously methods to
improve compliance are desireable and many have
been devised. Drug companies spend millions of
dollars for research in trying to develop
medications that require once a day dosing.
Patents have even been issued for the combination
of existing drugs in an attempt to reduce the
number of separate prescriptions a patient must
use.
.......Medalarm is a different
remedy for the compliance problem. In fact, it
has been granted both United States and Canadian
patents. Other international patents are also
pending. When conceived of in 1984, Medalarm
could not be manufactured cost-effectively given
the then state of the art technology. Through the
miracle of micro-electronics and two years of
development, Medalarm's original embodiment has
finally became a reality. As conceived of, it is
a portable, reuseable, re-programmable device
whose main purpose is to remind the patient that
a dose of medication must be administered. At
present the device is only for the use by
patient's who use eyedrops. The device attaches
simply yet firmly to the medication bottle and is
easily portable with the medication bottle. Later
models will be for use with other types of
medications. Continue to check our website for
new models. ......
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