Enhancing a Wearable Help Button to Support the Medication Adherence of Older Adults

Medication adherence has been identified as a problem that contributes to increasing the use of health-care services. In this paper, we present the design of a wearable notification display for supporting medication adherence which was designed in the context of a project that will study the impact of using ldquohelp buttonsrdquo to provide permanent socio-medical assistance to the elderly. From a case study that we conducted with six (6) participants we gained an initial understanding of how the elderly manage their medications to avoid the inherent risks associated with medicating that are identified in the literature. From this understanding, we identified how the characteristics for notification systems should be implemented in a system with the goal of supporting an activity carried out by older adults. Thus, we present the design characteristics incorporated into the wearable notification display for medication adherence, which we consider will enable the elderly to easily read and interpret the information presented on the display.