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MEDIA ANDAWARDS
In the News
Medical Watch - May 8, 2008 - Electronic pill box may help elderly adhere to medication schedules
AHN - May 7, 2008 - Electronic Pillbox Helps Elderly Take Medication On Time
Health Day - May 7, 2008 - Electronic Pillbox Helps Seniors Stick to Drug Regimens
San Antonio Business Journal - April 4, 2008 - MedSignals wins SATAI Technology Superstar Award
San Antonio Express News - May 24, 2007
Dallas Morning News on Dallas News.com - August 19, 2007
San Antonio Business Journal - Week of April 6, 2007
OUTLOOK Texas as seen in Forbes, July 23, 2007 - Vesta Brue and MedSignals, Innovators in Personal Health Management - PDF
National Federation of the Blind, - January 21, 2008 - Access Technology at the Consumer Electronics Show
IN THE NEWS
Electronic pill box may help elderly adhere to medication schedules.
Published: May 8, 2008 By: Medical Watch
AHN (5/7, Sharma) reported that the company Lifetechniques has developed an "electronic pillbox meant to aid the elderly...in taking their medicines on time," according to data presented at a meeting of the American Geriatric Society. The device, called MedSignals, "also announces the number of pills to take and how to take them."
While testing the pillbox's efficacy, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy found that "[w]ith the boxes, patients" between the ages of 65 and 84 who were "prescribed more than a single dose per day of any particular drug, took one pill more per day on average," HealthDay (5/7, Mozes) added. In addition, "the number of days when patients accidentally skipped their drug regimen altogether dropped to just six percent when using an electronic pillbox -- from 12 percent without the box."
Electronic Pillbox Helps Elderly Take Medication On Time
Published: May 7, 2008 By: Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer
Washington D.C. (AHN) - An electronic pillbox meant to aid the elderly people in taking their medicines on time is a useful tool in old age, new research reveals. The pill box not only beeps at the appointed drug-taking time but also announces the number of pills to take and how to take them.
Manufactured by Santa Barbara, Calif.-based company Lifetechniques, the interactive pillbox was given to a group of patients between the ages of 65 and 84. All the patients were following a prescription regimen of at least four medications.
However, they were also self-sufficient with respect to their ability to take their own medications and were physically active. About one-third of the patients were men.
The results showed that electronic pillboxes boosted drug adherence. The number of days when patients accidentally skipped their drug regimen altogether dropped to just 6 percent when using an electronic pillbox -- from 12 percent without the box, Health Day news reports.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also recommends senior citizens use a calendar or a pillbox to stick to drug routines as the pillboxes are particularly helpful for those dealing with complex multi-pill regimens. It is also useful for who have difficulty opening safety sealed drug containers.
The study, funded by the National Institute on Aging, was presented recently at the American Geriatric Society meeting in Washington, D.C.
Electronic Pillbox Helps Seniors Stick to Drug Regimens
Study found fewer doses were missed, more doses taken on timeElectronic pill box may help elderly adhere to medication schedules.
Published: May 7, 2008 By: By Alan Mozes, HealthDay Reporter
Older adults following a medication regimen are less likely to miss doses when reminded by an electronic pillbox that both beeps at the appointed drug-taking time and announces the number of pills to take and how to take them, new research reveals.
The study, which was funded by the National Institute on Aging, was presented recently at the American Geriatric Society meeting in Washington, D.C., by co-authors Vesta Brue, founder and chairman of Lifetechniques Inc., of San Antonio, and P. Ryder, of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Health Services Research division. Lifetechniques is the manufacturer of the particular electronic pillbox that was the focus of the research.
The interactive pillbox was given to a group of patients between the ages of 65 and 84 who were each following a prescription regimen of a least four medications.
All the patients were self-sufficient with respect to their ability to take their own medications and to move about freely. About one-third of the patients were men. About 38 percent were white, 40 percent were black, and 22 percent were Hispanic.
After three weeks to monitor natural pill-taking patterns, patients were tracked for three more weeks using "MedSignals" -- an electronic pillbox that is already commercially available.
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Medical Innovator
S.A. company develops pillbox that helps manage prescriptions 
Published: May 24, 2007 By: L.A. Lorex
A new wallet-sized computerized pillbox helps people manage their
medication and remember to take their pills on schedule.
The portable device beeps when it is time to take a pill, and it records
the time and grequency of the lid openngs on its four drug bins.
Lifetechniques Inc., which relocated from Santa Barbara, Calif, to
San Antonio a year ago, invented the device called MedSignals. It
sits in a cradle that connects to a telephone and electrical line
and is programmed to dial a toll free number once a day to upload
information.
More -
PDF
Caregivers use technology to help faraway family
Published: 06:52 PM CDT Sunday, August 19, 2007 By BOB MOOS / The Dallas Morning News
...Another entrepreneur, Vesta Brue of San Antonio, heard friends fret that their aging parents weren't remembering to take their medications. Her answer was a "smart pillbox" called MedSignals that beeps at the appropriate times, dispenses the prescriptions, tracks the use and sends the information to a Web site.
Caregivers then can check whether their loved ones have taken their pills. Clinical trials have found that patients using the device are less likely to miss their medication than those who rely on memory.
Ms. Brue's company, LifeTechniques Inc., will ship the first pillboxes to customers this month. MedSignals sells for $200; caregivers will pay from $3.50 to $15 per month for accessing their seniors' medication use...
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Biotech Firm Set to Unveil Pillbox Monitoring Device
Published: Week of April 6, 2007 By: Tamarind Phinisee
A local company expects to soon unveil a new medical device designed
to make sure patients take their medicine just as the doctor ordered.
The device, called MedSignals, is a four-bin pill box that includes
a monitoring device that tracks when and how often the lid of each
bin is opened.
Once connected to a server, the data stored in the device is uploaded
and posted to a designated Web site.
The information at the Web Site can be accessed remotely by the patient
as well as a caregiver or doctor. MedSignals was developed by San
Antonio-based LIFETECHniques Inc., which specializes in the research
and development of technology designed for the health care industry.
"So, you can sit in San Antonio and look online and see if (your
grandmother in Dallas) is taking her pills on time today," says
Vesta Brue, founder and chairman of LIFETECHniques.
The information at the Web Site, Brue says, is secure. Individuals
wanting to access patient information must have user names and passwords.
Brue says the device will hit the marketplace in July and be accessible
through home health agencies, company health plans and research trial
organizations and via the Internet.
"Also, we're hoping to get them into retail-based clinics like
the new CVS Pharmacy MinuteClinics," she says.
Brue adds that within a year the company expects to have device in
retail outlets that sell personal health appliances like glucose and
blood pressure monitors.
The device will cost consumers about $200 and the service will be
anywhere from $2.50 to $15 a month.
Since LIFETECHniques' launch, it has garnered a little over $10 million
in National Institutes of Health research grants for MedSignals and
its smoking cessation device called SmokeSignals -- a computerized
cigarette case that monitors smoking habits.
Access Technology at the Consumer Electronics Show
Posted: 1/21/2008 By: Clara Van Gerven
Last week, the Access Technology team, represented by Anne Taylor, our Director of Access Technology, and myself, attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It has taken us a few days to recover from the novelties and masses of people, but here at last is the CES post.
Our task as a team when attending CES is twofold – we are there to scope out new technology; and we are there to remind the manufacturers of the needs of blind users. This makes for a very mixed experience. So how did we do? Well, we found a number of mainstream products that are accessible, or at least usable, right off the bat; and that is always great news...
Another discovery was MedSignals, a pillbox which not only speaks instructions for use, but which also records when a patient takes his or her medication to a database, making it easier for a doctor or caregiver to follow-up on a given treatment. The device will need a few tweaks to make it fully accessible, but it is most of the way there, and we hope to assist MedSignals CEO Vesta Brue in making her product truly accessible.
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BLOGS and TESTIMONIALS
The MedSignals pill box won't let you forget
Posted: May 27th 2007 8:25AM By: Rigel
Gregg
Filed under: Health and Technology
Technology is seeping into every part of our lives, bit by bit. And now even pill boxes are getting fancy! No more simple snap-top boxes with a separate section for every day of the week, no...now they come with audible alerts and tracking systems too.
View Blog Entry
MedSignals Alerts You to Take Your Pills - And keeps track of previous doses
By: Tudor Raiciu, Technology and Science Editor
As technology evolves, even the simplest of tasks become high-tech. Apparently, prescriptions are a huge problem in the US.
"Nearly half of the 3.3 billion prescriptions dispensed annually in North America are estimated to be incorrectly consumed. This is sufficient to mitigate the pharmaceuticals’ benefits and possibly even result in harm to the user. Medication noncompliance is a clinical phenomenon that crosses all age groups with huge economic impact to society," manufacturer LIFETECHniques says.
The solution? The new MedSignals, which tells you when to take your next dose and records previous intakes.
View Blog Entry
Forget your meds? Try an Internet pillbox
Posted: May 24 2007
By: Mike Yamamoto
Due to a combination of aging and parental amnesia, we've often noted our appreciation for anything that improves our failing memory. (At least, we think we have.) So even though this device may have been intended mostly for the elderly--we're not there yet, thank you very much--it's something that just about anyone could use.
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MedSignals reminds you to take your pills
Even if you don't take as many prescriptions as I do (and you almost certainly don't), you've probably had the experience of needing to take them every X stupid period of time and keep taking them Y stupid number of days and if you forget even one then your head will swell up and fall off and you'll die. Or, you can use the Med Signals pillbox, which alerts you when it's time to take your drugs, remembers the last time you opened the box (so "eight hours apart" is actually eight hours, not four and then twelve for a total of sixteen) and then can be set to upload your data to a remote server so your doctor can keep tabs on whether you secretly just sold all your pills to Bulgarians. (No danger of me doing that; my drugs are far too awesome.)
View Blog Entry
MedSignals' digital pill box charts your dosage
Posted May 26th 2007 - Engadget / Darren Murph
As the field of devices that let caregivers step away and give the
elderly more independence expands, it was just a matter of time before digital pill boxes hit the mainstream. The aptly-dubbed med-minder holds one’s pills in separated compartments to divvy up the days, and send out audible alerts (as well as flashing LEDs) when it’s time to take them, records the time of opening in its built-in memory, uploads the usage data automatically to a server, and allows for access to personal chart trackers that show if any days were skipped over or taken late.
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