The Live Well Collaborative at the University of Cincinnati conducted a Hill-Rom sponsored multidisciplinary studio in the Winter Quarter of 2008. The collaboration sought to explore solutions that could help to increase the likelihood for the target Alzheimers Disease (AD) patients to stay home longer.

The multidisciplinary team consisted of a group of faculty and 34 students from Industrial Design, Digital Design, Marketing, and Biomedical Engineering. During the process, national and international experts and advisors were invited to provide professional insights and feedback for the project team.

Students were divided into five groups at the research phrase. Each group conducted interviews with two care givers of an Alzheimer Disease patient to gain insight understanding of the situation. Also, each group was assigned one of the five research topics:

1. Medicine distribution
2. Medication + Packaging: Alzheimers Disease
3. Human factors
4. A day in the life
5. Product benchmarking

Phase One: Research

The goal of the studio was to explore an integrated Alzheimers Patient Medication Management System to increase the likelihood for the target Alzheimers Disease patients to stay at home longer by taking the right medication. The patient population was 70+ year old women suffering from Alzheimers Disease, living at home, with limited caregiver assistance. It was our contention that medication management was one of two major challenges (nutrition is the other one) that forced these patients to prematurely leave their homes for assisted living. Taking the right medication at the right time is a necessary requirement for managing health, and maintaining a higher degree of independence and quality of life. We believed that by effectively addressing this issue, we could reduce secondary effects from taking incorrect medication.

We also identified four of the main common problems and frustrations for caregivers and patients in the medication process:

Problem Area One: Picking up Patient Medication

• Time consuming
• Multiple pharmacies
• Privileges complications on pickup

Problem Area Two: Sorting out Daily Medication

• Time consuming
• Labor intensive
• Multiple Bottles
• Multiple Medication
• Complex dosing

Problem Area Three: Distribution of Medication

• Physical ‘Hand off’
• Opening Multiple Medications
• Potential Medication Mix ups

Problem Area Four: Taking the Medication

• Physical holding of pills
• Actual holding of medication
• Dropping medication
• Lost medication
• Difficulty swallowing pills