Bottle-cap medication reminder and overdose safeguard

DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention has been found to be useful in the dispensing of pharmaceuticals to patients or other users.
A user is not necessarily a patient (i.
e, someone suffering from an ailment).
One may prescribe a drug as a prophylaxis.
For example, when one is travelling to a part of the world in which malaria is endemic, it is prudent to take anti-malarial compounds to prevent the onset of disease.
In many drug regimens, it is necessary to maintain a steady level of a particular drug to assure efficacy.
For example, if pills are prescribed and one pill must be taken at an interval of every four hours, the benefits of the medication is assured if the user takes it as close to the interval as practicable.
A reminder apparatus integrated with the medicine's container provides a visual status of pills taken or not taken during the day.
In an example embodiment according to the present invention, a pill bottle cap has built in the following: Real-time clock One or more timers Audible alert Display (for example, a 2 or 3 color LCD) Sensor to detect presence of bottle Button or buttons Electrical communications interface (for programming) Battery Refer to FIG.
1.
The block diagram 100 provides an overview of the components of an embodiment of the present invention.
A real-time clock 105 provides a time base reference for the interval timers 110.
One timer represents an interval at which a dose must be taken.
For example, a medication requiring four daily doses would have a timer corresponding to each dose, therefore four timers.
However, the invention is not so limited.
An alert 120 to inform the user of a dose may be audible tome or be a visual display, or be a tactile signal.
A graphical user interface (GUI) 115 provides the user a graphical display of the status of each dose of medication.
The GUI 115 typically is a liquid crystal display (LCD).
To detect cap removal there is a sensor 125.
One or more buttons 140 enable the user to check the status of the dosages taken or available, or may be used to program the device via a programming interface 135