PRE2015 4 Groep3

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Members of this group:

  • Maurits Ambags - 0771400
  • Wesly Chu - 088994
  • Arthur Geel - 0907552
  • Jasper Sparla - 0844019
  • Twan Weernink - 0851703

Potential ideas for this project

  • Autonomous Refueling Stations
  • Guidance system for elderly/demented people
  • Cleaning robots for in café's/bars
  • Delivery robots in buildings (Packages, but also for food/drinks)
  • Cooking robots
  • Agriculture robots (Both for small greenhouses as for big fields)
  • Window cleaning robots

[We should probably scrap this chapter and replace it with a brief introduction of the project, preferably 2-3 lines of text so that readers of this wiki can quickly get an indication of what this is about]

Introduction

In present day, people are using more medicine than ever. Patients are expected to take the right amount of their medicine at the right time, often multiple different ones per day. Each of these activities is a process that can easily go wrong, which has the potential to do some serious damage. As we get older, we generally use multiple medicines at the same time, yet our memory becomes worse. The budget cuts in health care result in doctors and pharmacists having less time for each patient, which means they might not understand exactly what they are taking. With the rush of internet and communication sciences, a lot of the patients files are being converted to digital files, yet not everyone is using a standardized format, which means communication can be an issue.

A report that the dutch government has released in 2013, entitled ‘polyfarmacie bij kwetsbare ouderen’ [citation needed], states that over one million people aged 65 and over take five different types of medication every single day. When we expand our view to those aged 75 and over, we see that 20 percent of those take nine different types of medication every day. When you combine that with the fact that up to 40 percent of the elderly receive insufficient information about their medication, an over- or underconsumption of medicine is the frightening result. Often, the medicine old people take are quite potent, leading to hazardous situations when taken incorrectly.

Finally, when we consider the prevalence of dementia amongst the elderly, of which over thirty percent of the people older than 80 years old suffer, it is clear that there is a need for a tool that helps people with their medication, both for when they need to take their medicine, but also as a safeguard to prevent dangerous combinations.

State of the art

Introduction

Medicine boxes are not a novel concept. Medicine has been around ever since the ancient ages, and medicine boxes are a straight-forward extension of medication to keep things organised. Modern pharmacies often have the medication distributed in individually sealed bags with the date of when the medicine should be taken on them, and there are also a plethora of physical medicine cases with dates on them to remind the patients of when medicine needs to be taken. Some of the aforementioned medicine cases can be locked to prevent medicine abuse.

Physical medicine boxes

Medicine boxes that are able to be locked have been around since the

Example two

Example three

Conclusion

So, what is actually wrong with the current things, and what can we add to make our concept valuable in the market? Well, what we can do is ..., ... and ... . The end.

Requirements

This medicine box should be able to dispense medicine into a compartment that the user can access whenever the time is right. To do this, the box should keep track of its schedule and dispense medicine when necessary. When medicine is due, the user should be notified by the box that medicine is ready to be taken. The medicine storage consists of several separate containers, not directly accessible by the user. The box should dispense medicine from these containers into the aforementioned compartment, according to its internal scheduler. It should also remind the patient in what kind of manner it has to use the medicine e.g. on a empty stomach, before sleep etc,etc.

Secondly, the box should be remotely accessible by caretakers and doctors. They should be able to use an application to update the dosage of medicine in the box. This should alleviate some of the confusion for the patient when dosages change, and should prevent over-consumption of medicine, since dosage can be changed without an intermediate appointment with the doctor. It should also be possible for the doctors and caretakers to see the historical medicine intake of the patient and if it is following its prescription.

To refill the box, the user should be able to pick up (parts of) the box, so that it can be taken with them to the doctor and/or pharmacist. We rely on the caretakers' expertise to fill the box and update the data in the application accordingly, so that the user should not have to concern themselves with their medicine intake.

USE Aspects

User

A better surveillance system will mean medicine usage will be safer. This is especially true for older people that may be a bit forgetful and who may take the wrong pills out of a pillbox. Doctors also can clearly see the prescription history and will will know any possible complications between medicine.

Society

The medicine box could remind people to finish their prescription and not simply stop when their are feeling better. When they complete their prescription they prevent unnecessary bacteria resistance against the medicine.

Enterprise

An automated medicine storage system could mean a decrease in time pharmacists need to spend on handing out medicine

Stakeholders

[update needed] The stakeholders in this scenario are primarily the owners/employees of fuel pumps, and the customers that use them. One could argue that, since these changes affect the safety of all car users (which happens to be the vast majority of the adult society), this impacts society as a whole, but we will only consider customers for now.

The employees will see a more efficient (and hopefully safer) environment at their pump. They may now have some extra tasks regarding robot maintenance, but there are also benefits, as the employees are not alone anymore in supervising the pump. Pump owners may see an increase in the profitability of their pump, since the efficient refueling may allow them to service the same amount of customers with fewer pumps, or service more with their current setup. Also, customers will spend more time inside the store, which may lead to more store purchases.

Customers will see their time spent at fuel pumps decrease. While this may not be that important to some, professional drivers like truckers will benefit from any time they can save. Of course, the fuel pump should be a safer place for the customers as well, although this will likely go unnoticed. Finally, with this system, it's nearly impossible to fill your car with the wrong type of fuel. Driving with the wrong type of fuel can severely damage your car[1].

Week 2 Discussed new possible options for project. We decided to develop a new smart medication intake system. Mailed the project supervisors for feedback on this idea. We made the powerpoint presentation for this subject and discussed the neccesary problems for this subject. https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1P7jWKwyMBLSlZsZ2kOfQlemWNvSBaDBneIOfY8xGeBs/edit Main literature link for problem http://www.rivm.nl/Documenten_en_publicaties/Algemeen_Actueel/Nieuwsberichten/2013/Miljoen_65_plussers_loopt_risico_op_verkeerd_medicijngebruik

The primary stakeholders for the medicine box are elderly people who can still life on their own or with elderly assistance. The patient must be able to take the pills on their own in the correct way since the box can only encourage medicine usage and cannot enforce it. The patient doesn't have to worry about it's pill intake anymore and wonder whether it has taken its pills or not. Since pills are stored in a central place the risk of accidents will be smaller. Small children will be less at risk of finding them randomly scattered in a home and swallow them.

The secondary stakeholders are the pharmacist who will fill the box and the doctors who will set the schedule for the machine. The pharmacist already is able to see which treatment the patient is on. He will need to have a way to accurately restock the machine with the correct medicine in the right storage bay. The doctor must have the ability to see the historical medicine usage of the patient and if the patient adheres to the treatment. If he sees an anomaly in the usage he can talk with the patient about it. He also must be able to change the prescription and dose remotely so he doesn't have to go out his office for a change in therapy.

Tertiary stakeholders will be the companies that will produce and install these machines in peoples homes.

Planning

Week 1
Field research

Week 2
Clarify our project goals
Define USE aspects
Literature research
Field research

Week 3
Design sketches
Start up qualitative questionnaires
Start up quantitative questionnaires

Week 4
Develop UI for app
Start prototyping the final design
Questionnaire Data processing

Week 5
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Week 6
User-test medicine box

Week 7
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Week 8
Review wiki and update if necessary
Buffer week

Week 9
Prepare final presentation

Used Literature

Below is an example of how we should reference to the literature we have used, also known as APA style referencing.

  • Author, A.A.. (Year of Publication). Title of work. Publisher City , State: Publisher.
  • Author, A.A.. (Year, Month Date of Publication). Article title. Retrieved from URL