Clarion’s Medicine-Taking Support Robot Will Help Prevent Overdoses
[CEATEC 2016] For patients that are old, sometimes they can get forgetful which means that sometimes they will either forget to take their medicine, or forget that they’ve already taken their medicine and end up taking another dose, which can sometimes be fatal as it could lead to an overdose.
Clarion is hoping to prevent such tragedies from happening and have unveiled a medicine-taking support robot. This robot will be able to dispense medicine to patients or their caregivers. It will be able to speak and there is also a display, so that patients know what they’re taking, or if they’ve forgotten to take their medicine, and will also help prevent overdoses.
Clarion also claims that this system will help cut down on drug wastage, and that it will also help to increase annual savings in healthcare costs that is in the excess of 40 trillion yen. The robot will also be useful in nursing homes where there might be a shortage of labor, so if a system could be created to automatically dispense medicine to patients, it could help deal with that.
This medicine-taking support robot is not the only kind in the market. In recent times there was a similar concept launched on Indiegogo called the Pillo that helps dispense medication, although in this case it seems to be aimed at a variety of users and not just the elderly.