Many of my older relatives have to take many, many medications, and it is often quite confusing for them. 2 of these, 1 of that, this every 4 hours, this other every 6. It's necessary for their health, but an organizational nightmare.
So what if I had a box that could store a large amount of all of these medicines, and inject it at certain times? It could be implanted, or a wristband device that connects to an IV. It would be set up by a doctor to inject substance X at Y times, and then attached to the patient.
This would work well for medicines because medicines have to be kept at a certain dose to be active, but are slowly reduced in quantity by the body's natural workings. With this system, one never forgets, and dosing can be done even in one's sleep.
On the downside, if it's external, it's probably annoying, bulky, and the repeated injections or persistent IV can't be good for you. If it's implanted, refilling it is an issue. (Access panel on the skin? Seems macabre.)
Medical commenters: Is this even remotely viable?
1 comment:
I suppose if you could heparin coat the intravascular part of the tube to avoid clotting and if you could somehow solve the problem of bacterial infiltration, it could work. Probably not possible with what we have today, but I suspect people are working on it. :)
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