A half chemical, half technological pill… A “smart” medicine. Not because it heals, but because it communicates!
The American Food and Drug Administration, the famous FDA, has just authorized the marketing of the first connected electronic pill.
This medicine, called Abilify MyCite, will initially concern people suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
It is the development of a system which must solve one of the doctor’s last puzzles. By sending him information directly, he will be sure that the patient has taken his treatment…
It’s not a gimmick; it may even be the solution to a serious medical problem; according to the WHO, one out of two patients does not take their treatment. Thanks to this pill there will be no more ambiguity!
How it works ?
The mechanism is quite simple. We swallow the capsule. When it arrives in the stomach, it is opened by the mechanism of digestion and it releases a sensor which then begins to emit a signal which is received by a patch fixed on the arm of the patient while we renew all the weeks. This patch is linked to a smart phone which sends this information immediately to the doctor. And this information is important. Because apart from the fact that many patients forget their treatment, a good number lie… This is why this sensor only starts up when the medicine is in the stomach and therefore well swallowed!
Is this sensor hard to swallow?
No, because it’s the size of a grain of sand. A miniature chip, made of conductive materials, copper and magnesium, but without a battery. On the other hand the patch is equipped with a mini battery
Why do patients not take their treatments?
By forgetting, although for these, for a few years now, specialized services have offered to send an SMS to remind them of the time of taking, but this is not an absolute guarantee. Then there is psychiatry where the proof that the treatment has been taken is based on testimony that is not always solid. And then there are the inveterate liars…
Of course it is serious not to take your treatment…
In some diseases it is even vital! I will take an example: 15 million people are hypertensive in our country, of which 4 million are unaware of it. 11 million are therefore treated. Well, only 60% take their treatment properly. Or, take antibiotics, for which we know that the treatment times are fundamental not to give rise to resistant microbes, are not respected in the majority of cases. What is serious for everyone’s health…
There are also elderly people who are often lost in front of the tons of drugs that doctors prescribe for them.
And this spy pill will be well accepted by the patient?
No more than the treatment for those who do not want to take it, but there at least the doctor will have proof of it immediately.
This smart drug is going to cost a fortune…
It will be more expensive… but much less than certain extremely expensive drugs or, in the long term, than an illness that cannot be treated.
There are already mini-cameras that are swallowed like capsules?
It’s true, it’s called video capsules, and it’s not new; about ten years; It is swallowed in the form of a capsule. There is a battery inside that can film and light for 10 hours. Throughout its descent, it sends images, of fairly good quality without being perfect, which are received by a decoder, a small box placed on the stomach.
At the exit of the stomach, there is a very long, fairly thin tube a little over seven meters long, the small intestine which continues with a good five feet of large intestine; probably the most secret place in our body was that small intestine. It is necessary to recognize with the video capsule the exploit to have allowed the exploration of it.
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