Extending an intelligent medicine cabinet through the use of consumer electronic devices in order to increase the medication adherence

Medication adherence plays a central role in a patient´s treatment. Complying with a treatment regimen may become a challenging task; in fact, proper attention may be given to the doctors´ and patients´ behavior in this process. It is also necessary to guarantee a good patient-doctor interaction. A computer-based intelligent medicine cabinet has been proposed previously to support this process. Now this device is extended aiming to focus on the doctor-patient interaction, providing a better management of the medication process by making the related information available to everyone involved. All its previous characteristics were maintained and this extension leads to the creation of an intelligent ambient that makes use of conventional electronic consumer devices to communicate with the patients trying to increase their medication adherence.