Talking medicine will help patient compliance

Help for people newly diagnosed with a chronic disease and facing a complex new regimen of medication could come from audio-enabled drug packaging, according to product design specialists Cambridge Consultants.

All drugs are issued with instructions in the packet. However, these can be hard to understand, with long lists of contraindications and possible side-effects, and instructions on how to use associated devices. Non-compliance with drug prescriptions is a major problem, which has serious implications for the health of patients and can sometimes lead to hospital admissions which would not have been necessary if instructions had been understood clearly. This is particularly a problem for people who have been newly diagnosed with a chronic disease like diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, or multiple sclerosis, which require combinations of drugs to be taken at specific times of day and specific conditions (such as with, before or after food, or according to a particular reading on a tesing device); or in a way that the patient may not be used to, such as by injection or inhalation.