Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The population of people is increasing rapidly, and as people grow older they develop

memory difficulties. So older people might forget to take their medicines on time, or forget that

they have already taken their medicines. Consequently, they miss doses of medicines, or take

overdoses. To solve this problem, we designed and built an electronic system, which can be

installed in a medicine cabinet to keep track of a person's intake of medications. The system criteria

has follow low cost, ease of use, reliability, and compatibility with different cabinet types, and

medicine bottles More particularly, the invention provides methods and systems for managing a

person's medicine cabinet with a computer system connected to the database along with the sensor.

Typical medicine cabinets merely provide a mechanism for storing a person's medication.

When the medicine cabinet is located in a house in which a family resides, it is not unusual for the

medicine cabinet to contain medications for different members of the household. This presents the

possibility that one person may take medication inadvertently that is prescribed for a different

person. Also, it is not unusual that a person will forget to have a prescription refilled until he takes

the last medicine of his medication. With today's busy lifestyles, people often take their

medications at the wrong time or in the wrong amount.

At present, many people rely on medicine in their daily lives. A growing number, especially

the elderly are required, and take many different types of varying doses of medicines at different

times throughout the day. This can become complicated and potentially life-threatening mistakes.

Caring of the aged is of a serious concern in the developing countries. Family members are
responsible for the care and management of the old. In the modern age, it is difficult for family

members to be available all the time to support the aged.

The remarkable problem is that patients forget to take the proper medicines in proper

proportion and in proper time. Medication adherence, which refers to the degree or extent to which

a patient takes the right medication at the right time according to a doctors prescription, has

recently emerged as a serious issue because many studies have reported that non-adherence may

critically affect the patient, thereby raising medical costs. Medication non-adherence is a common,

complex, and costly problem that contributes to poor treatment outcomes and consumes healthcare

resources.

So we are introducing a Medicine Reminder using Arduino with GSM Module whose

objective is to remind the patients through alarm and SMS. The device is superior because it

actively detects whether the daily dosage has been taken. The photodiode in the medicine boxes

monitors light emitted from the LED at the bottom of the each medicine boxes, if there are no

medicine obstructing the light, then the medicine must have been taken. The other reason why the

device is superior is that it uses an MCU to control the alarm LEDs and buzzer, the LCD, and the

photodiodes of the device. Using a low-cost MCU allows the device to be constructed at reduced

expense.

Objectives of the Study

General Objective

The study aims to develop a prototype device that tells a user when to take his/her daily dosages

and warns them if they have failed to take all of their medicines. The device is marketed to all

people who takes medication daily.

Specific objectives
 The device is able to notify an individual with a visual display and a LED next to the

medicine boxes containing their medicines.

The device uses an MCU and photodiodes to sense when the light level has changed in the

medicine boxes and is power by a 5V power supply.

A LED light source will be at the bottom of the medicine box to provide light in the

medicine compartment to see the medicines and provide light for the photodiode to sense.

If medication is in the box, the light source will be blocked, and the MCU does not detect

any pills. The device will remind the users or patients to take medicines using sound.

The device can notify the user through GSM module.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

The device will provide an easy and convenient way for the elderly and impaired to

organize their medicines and will serve as a reminder for when to take their medication.

Scope

The main components of the medicine box will be seven medicine compartments, an LCD

screen to aid programming and display messages, four buttons for operation, a buzzer, and external

LEDs to notate which compartments medication to take.

Key aspects of the project's design include:

Way to keep accurate time

Time adjustable alarm

Alarm consisting of auditory (buzzer) and visual (LCD and LED) indicators

Silence alarm notification

LED-photodiode pair for each medicine compartment (seven pairs) for the detection of

medicines
 Indicator LED for each medicine compartment (seven total) to show which compartment the

medicines should be taken.

Sending SMS notification through GSM module to the mobile number.

When the unit is first powered on, the user will be prompted to enter the current day and

time. Once set, the user will then be prompted to set the alarm to take the medication for each day.

After the alarm is set, the user is returned to a main menu screen that will be the default for all

normal operation. The main menu will allow the user to set the daily alarm, set the time, and set

the day. The device will check for medicines using the LED-photodiode pair by lighting the LED

at the bottom of the current day's chamber and checking to see if the photodiode detects the LEDs

light. If the photodiode does not detect light, then a medicine is blocking the led, and the medicines

have not been taken. If it detects light, then there are no medicines in the chamber to block the

LEDs light. The alarm will consist of sounding a buzzer as an audible alert and flashing a LED

on the current day's chamber as a visual alert. Also, once the alarm has gone off, the LCD screen

will display a message telling the user to take their prescription for that day.

When it is time to activate the alarm, the medicine box will check the current day's

medicine chamber for medication. If the instrumented medicine box detects that there are no

medicines, then it will assume that either there are no medicines to take for that day or that the

medicines were taken prior to the alarm. If the medicine box does detect medicines, the alarm will

be activated for ten minutes. While the alarm is activated, the user will be able to press any of the

buttons to deactivate the alarm. Whenever the alarm is deactivated, the medicine box will wait one

minute to check that the medicines were actually removed from the correct chamber. In the event

that medicines are detected, the alarm will reactivate. If the alarm is not cleared after ten minutes,

the buzzer will be turned off but the LED and LCD will stay in the alarm state. The device will
continue to run with the set alarms and delays until they are changed or the supply power is

removed.

Delimitation

It requires a power supply.

The device is loaded correctly at the beginning of the week (any day of the week and before

the alarm for that day), including replacement of previously untaken medicines.

Medicines are removed from the correct compartment.

Medicine are taken when removed from the compartment.

All medicines taken on a specific day are taken at the same time.

The completed medicine enclosure implements the designed functionality with some minor

differences. A four minute alarm time was chosen instead of 10 minutes. Also, if the user does not

silence the alarm or take their medication, the medicine box waits for one hour before setting the

alarm off again, instead of every 10 minutes. This design change was chosen to conserve energy.

The medicine box will continue alarming every hour after the alarm on that day until 12 AM, or

until the user takes their daily dosage.

Significance of the Study

The significance of this study is to help and give benefit to the concerned group below and

the further improvement of the project that can be conceptualized in other processes.

To the User, The study would helped the user who cannot take their medicine at the

prescribed times that depend on other people and who are maintaining medicine. Remain

independent at home.

To the Caregivers, The study help the caregivers to reduce risk accidental over or under

dosing when no one is there to help. Reduce the risk of unnecessary medical complications and
unplanned hospitalizations and maintain independence and peace of mind.

To the Researcher, The researchers will also learn from this system because we gained

more knowledge and experience during the whole process of doing the system. This study will

enhance the skills and abilities of the researcher.

To the Future Researcher. Who will pursue the same areas of research as of the study

and therefore be guided as a reference and development or improvement of the projects.