Gerenciador de Pílulas Inteligente

In Brazil, as in other countries in the world, the percentage of elderlypeople has been increasing in recent decades. This fact ismainly caused by the drop in the birth rate and the increase in theaverage life span. As a result, health care for the elderly becomesincreasingly important. Adherence to drug treatment is a clinicalchallenge for doctors who serve this population. Very old peoplehave multiple illnesses and, consequently, they use multiple medications.Some also have impaired cognitive or sensory functions,such as visual pathologies or decreased motor skills. However, nonadherenceto drug treatment can lead to the emergence of newdiseases, hospitalizations or even death. This article presents the developmentof an intelligent device that has the function of assistingdrug management, seeking the well-being of the elderly. The deviceallows the registration of the time and interval of medication intakethrough a list of products, regulated by Anvisa, pre-registeredin the system and selected according to its format. After audibleand visual warnings, the medication is dispensed automatically,allowing the medication to be ingested at the appropriate time. Itis also possible to view a drug consumption report and registrationtimes. After testing, the developed prototype was effective for thepurpose for which it was designed. The encoder system, responsiblefor monitoring and controlling the position of the medicationcompartment disc, presented an average deviation of 0.0263 mm,which prevents the overlapping of pills. At the same time, samplesof medication availability at the scheduled times showed a zeroerror rate