Background Problems with prospective memory, which refers to the ability to remember future intentions, cause deficits in basic and instrumental activities of daily living, such as taking medications. Older adults show minimal deficits when they rely on mostly preserved and relatively automatic associative retrieval processes. On the basis of this, we propose to provide external cues to support the automatic retrieval of an intended action, that is, to take medicines. To reach this end, we developed the Medication Ambient Display (MAD), a system that unobtrusively presents relevant information (unless it requires the users’ attention) and uses different abstract modalities to provide external cues that enable older adults to easily take their medications on time and be aware of their medication adherence. Objective This study aimed to assess the adoption and effect of external cues provided through ambient displays on medication adherence in older adults. Methods A total of 16 older adults, who took at least three medications and had mild cognitive impairment, participated in the study. We conducted a 12-week feasibility study in which we used a mixed methods approach to collect qualitative and quantitative evidence. The study included baseline, intervention, and postintervention phases. Half of the participants were randomly allocated to the treatment group (n=8), and the other half was assigned to the control group (n=8). During the study phases, research assistants measured medication adherence weekly through the pill counting technique. Results The treatment group improved their adherence behavior from 80.9% at baseline to 95.97% using the MAD in the intervention phase. This decreased to 76.71% in the postintervention phase when the MAD was no longer being used. Using a one-way repeated measures analysis of variance and a post hoc analysis using the Tukey honestly significant difference test, we identified a significant statistical difference between the preintervention and intervention phases (P=.02) and between the intervention and postintervention phases (P=.002). In addition, the medication adherence rate of the treatment group (95.97%) was greater than that of the control group (88.18%) during the intervention phase. Our qualitative results showed that the most useful cues were the auditory reminders, followed by the stylized representations of medication adherence. We also found that the MAD’s external cues not only improved older adults’ medication adherence but also mediated family caregivers’ involvement. Conclusions The findings of this study demonstrate that using ambient modalities for implementing external cues is useful for drawing the attention of older adults to remind them to take medications and to provide immediate awareness on adherence behavior. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04289246; https://tinyurl.com/ufjcz97
Studies on ambient computing technologies have shown their potential for assisting older adults to manage medications. However, their results cannot be generalizable, since they were conducted in different settings. We assessed the feasibility of a Medication Ambient Display (MAD) to improve the medication adherence of low-income Mexican older adults with mild-cognitive impairment (MCI). Through semi-structured interviews to 11 dyads of older adults and family caregivers who used MAD, we identified the effects of the setting conditions in the adoption and use of our technology. Our results showed that older adults forgot less to medicate. However, we observed that seniors have risky medication-related behaviors as a consequence of the challenges impose by our setting, such as the lack of adequate pharmaceutical policies regarding the rational use of medicines and the follow-up on patients’ medication regimens. We outline design implications for developing ambient computing technology to reduce drug adverse events associated with these challenges.
BACKGROUND Problems with prospective memory, which refers to the ability to remember future intentions, cause deficits in basic and instrumental activities of daily living, such as taking medications. Older adults show minimal deficits when they rely on mostly preserved and relatively automatic associative retrieval processes. On the basis of this, we propose to provide external cues to support the automatic retrieval of an intended action, that is, to take medicines. To reach this end, we developed the Medication Ambient Display (MAD), a system that unobtrusively presents relevant information (unless it requires the users’ attention) and uses different abstract modalities to provide external cues that enable older adults to easily take their medications on time and be aware of their medication adherence. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess the adoption and effect of external cues provided through ambient displays on medication adherence in older adults. METHODS A total of 16 older adults, who took at least three medications and had mild cognitive impairment, participated in the study. We conducted a 12-week feasibility study in which we used a mixed methods approach to collect qualitative and quantitative evidence. The study included baseline, intervention, and postintervention phases. Half of the participants were randomly allocated to the treatment group (n=8), and the other half was assigned to the control group (n=8). During the study phases, research assistants measured medication adherence weekly through the pill counting technique. RESULTS The treatment group improved their adherence behavior from 80.9% at baseline to 95.97% using the MAD in the intervention phase. This decreased to 76.71% in the postintervention phase when the MAD was no longer being used. Using a one-way repeated measures analysis of variance and a post hoc analysis using the Tukey honestly significant difference test, we identified a significant statistical difference between the preintervention and intervention phases (<i>P</i>=.02) and between the intervention and postintervention phases (<i>P</i>=.002). In addition, the medication adherence rate of the treatment group (95.97%) was greater than that of the control group (88.18%) during the intervention phase. Our qualitative results showed that the most useful cues were the auditory reminders, followed by the stylized representations of medication adherence. We also found that the MAD’s external cues not only improved older adults’ medication adherence but also mediated family caregivers’ involvement. CONCLUSIONS The findings of this study demonstrate that using ambient modalities for implementing external cues is useful for drawing the attention of older adults to remind them to take medications and to provide immediate awareness on adherence behavior. CLINICALTRIAL ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04289246; https://tinyurl.com/ufjcz97
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