WO1999023994A1

WO1999023994A1 - Medicine electronic agenda

Info

Publication number: WO1999023994A1
Application number: PCT/BR1998/000090
Authority: WO
Inventors: Euclides Furtado De Albuquerque Cavalcanti
Original assignee: Albuquerque Cavalcanti Euclide
Priority date: 1997-11-12
Filing date: 1998-11-09
Publication date: 1999-05-20
Also published as: BR9705372A

Abstract

Comprising of: a medicine storing cabinet (10) provided with at least one storing compartment (11) selectively closed by its respective lid (13) affixed to a front surface of the storing cabinet (10); an operational condition indicator means (40) to warn the user about at least one given temporal condition occurrence previously established, and a driving unit (50), to be programmed by the user to actuate the operational condition indicator means (40), as to the occurrence of any given temporal condition, said temporal condition being defined by one of the conditions of at least one time lapse elapsed as from the user programming of the driving unit (50) and at least one time instant previously established and defined by the user.

Description

Title: "MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA" DISCLOSURE OF THE PATENT The current invention refers to an electronic agenda to help plan and control medicine taking by its user. During some medical treatment cases, the patient has to take medicines, such as pills and the like at previously established periods of time along the day, generally for a certain number of days, in the cases of temporary treatment and, routinely when it comes to permanent medical treatment. Besides the medicine ingestion timetable imposition, the patient will also have to monitor the amount of pills and the like he or she has to take at the prescribed time. Upon situations when one gas to take more than one kind of medicine, each in accordance to prescribed dosage and sometimes at different times of the day due the incompatible nature of these medicines when taken at the same time or within a time interval common to the period of action of such drugs, the monitoring required by the patient needs greater care and attention so as to achieve the desired results. For some kinds of patients, such as the ones who suffer from mental impairment, failing memory, the illiterate ones and old people, mainly the old aged ones who gave their memory failure aggravated by their physical condition (the elder benign forget foulness), the personal monitoring of medicine taking times is thus far seriously jeopardized, making it necessary that another person better mentally suited comes to the patient help, as long as the medical treatment takes. Thus, it became a general aim of the current invention to offer a medicine electronic agenda which monitors the time and amount each medicine must be taken by a patient without recurring to another person^" s constant help, during the medical treatment of such patient. This and other goals shall be achieved through a medicine electronic agenda, comprehending: a medicine storing cabinet provided with at least one storing compartment locked through its respective cover applied to front

4 of said storing cabinet; a means of indicating the operational condition making the user aware of the occurrence of at least one determined temporal

6 condition previously established; and a driving unit, to be programmed by the user to command the operational condition indicator mean, whenever the

8 given temporal condition occurs, said temporal condition being defined by one

9 of the conditions of at least a time lapse elapsed as from the user^'s driving o unit programming and at least a previously established time lapse defined by 1 the user. 2 BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 3 Subsequently, the invention propper will be described, referring to the 4 hereattached drawings, in which: 5 Figure 1 represents schematically and is a front view the current invention 6 construction plan for the electronic agenda. The drawing shows it in an open 7 position; 8 Figure 2 schematically shows a top view of the here mentioned agenda and 9 an intermediary opening position, and figure 3 shows schematically and as a o block diagram, part of the current invention agenda components. 1 DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PATENT 2 As per the drawings, the current invention refers to a medicine 3 electronic agenda comprehending a medicine storing cabinet (10), in the form 4 of a basic body, for example, partially hollow and internally defined, it contains 5 several non communicating compartments, these being isolated and 6 independent one from the others accessible from the front (12) of the basic 7 body (10), through a respective opening (13), selectively possible to be 8 blocked up by means of a corresponding cover element (14), for example, sliding along the length of the respective compartment (11). In the illustrated solution, each compartment (11) offers, internally, the same storing capacity. To the basic body (10) a hinged cover is affixed to a lateral edge (20) with a suitable size so as to protect the basic body whole frontal face (10), when in a closed position of the agenda by the mentioned cover (20) against the frontal face (12) of said basic body (10). In another building plan for the current invention, the medicine storing cabinet presents a lid (20) covering part of its front face, this being, for example, simply fitted to sliding on the mentioned front face. In the preferred solution, each compartment (11 ) is given a numeric designation which allows its easy and safe identification on the part of the user and such designation is associated with the agenda monitoring unit (30), to be described further on. The current invention agenda presents further, an operational condition indicator means (40), functionally linked to the monitoring unit (30) which warns the user about the occurrence of a temporal condition previously established to a corresponding compartment (11) and a driving unit (50), oppressively linked to the monitoring unit (30), to be programmed by the user to command, through the latter, the operational condition indicator means (40), when each determined temporal condition occurs. Each temporal condition is defined by one of the conditions of at least one time lapse gone by as from the user programming of the driving unit (50) and at least a previously determined time lapse given by the user to each compartment (11 ). In the preferred and illustrated construction plan, an internal face of the cover (20), turned toward a front face (12) of the basic body (10), on which it is fitted so as to close the described agenda, a programmable panel is provided where one finds the monitoring unit (30) and the driving unit (50). The operational condition indicator means (40) includes at least a compartment indicative element (41) mounted on one of the basic body front face parts (10) and on the internal surface of the cover (20), preferably on the latter, each compartment indicative element (41) being deployed adjacent to a respective compartment (11), and electronically and operatively linked to the monitoring unit (30), so as to receive from it, a signal corresponding to a condition indication to the user that a temporal situation previously established by the user and associated with the respective compartment (11) has been achieved. The monitoring unit (30) comprises of a data receiving unit (31), connected to a driving unit (50), being capable of receiving electronic signals from it corresponding to each given temporal condition established for each compartment (11) of the basic body (10), to operate the described agenda, a time marking unit (32), operatively connected to the driving unit (50), through the data receiving unit (31), so as to be initialized and kept in an operational condition by the latter, until each given temporal condition be achieved, and a command unit (33), operatively connected to the time marking unit (32) and the operational condition indicator means (40), so as to control the energizing of the latter, when the time marking unit (32) indicates the occurrence of a given temporal condition. In accordance with the current invention, the driving unit (50), comprises of an alphanumeric screen, the screen operating elements (52), operatively connected to the screen (51) and the data receiving unit (31) of monitoring unit (30) and the operation function driving elements (53), operatively connected to the data receiving unit (31) of monitoring unit (30) and to screen (51). The screen operating elements (52) allow the user to program the driving unit (50) as to each one of the givens temporal conditions associated with each basic body (10) compartment (11), such program will be loaded as alphanumeric information in the screen (51 ), so as to keep the user posted on the defined programming for the said driving unit (50). The screen (51) will be built in such way as to allow ϊhe^~inserfιon'of several medicine indicative denominations, in a member equal to that of basic body (10), compartments (11), and ascribing to each medicine a certain amount of individualized information about each determined temporal condition to be observed when taking the given medicine. In the illustrated construction plan, each medicine information can be programmed to be taken at intervals of up to 8 hours, specifically through the information to the monitoring unit (30), on each hour to be observed. In another building option, the screen (51) is programmed to inform the time intervals occurrence, for the ingestion of each medicine. Through the screen operating elements (52), on the informative screen (51) are provided information about names of medicines, the ingestion time of which will be controlled by the agenda being described, each given temporal condition is associated with one medicine to be monitored by the agenda, and temporal information on date and hour. The screen operating elements (52) are in the forms of keys which make the loading of said medicine denomination and temporal on the screen (51), possible, upon the determination as to the kind of data to be loaded is established by the operational function driving elements (53). The establishment as to the kind of data to be loaded on the informative screen (51) and consequently to the monitoring unit (30), is determined by the operational function driving elements (53), which allows the user to ascertain whether the data loading will be nominative, for the medicine representation case, or numeric, for the definition of each temporal internal of respective medicine ingestion. The nominative data loaded on the programmable panel are only visual indicative of medicine deployment in the basic body cabinet (10) so as to make it easy for the user to recognize such medicines, particularly when it comes to the performance of the operational condition indicator (40) . 1 The numeric data besides indicating to the user each medicine taking

2 programmed schedule, the agenda under discussion also consider the

3 informative data sent to the receiving unit (31) and to the time marking unit

4 (32) to process and drive the operational condition indicator means (40).

5 The operational function driving elements (53) also allows the sound

6 and/or visual indicative signs driving determination and also the agenda

7 calendar and time updating.

8 The driving unit (50) also presents, on the programmable panel, on/off

9 elements (54), to operate the agenda under discussion and a blocking l o element (55) to prevent any accidental alteration of the established program.

Claims

CLAIMS 1^a)- MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA, characterized by comprising of: - a medicine storing structure (10) provided with at least one storing compartment (11) selectively closed by a respective lid (13) applied to a frontal surface of said storing structure (10); - an operational condition indicator means (40) making the user aware of at least one given temporal condition occurrence previously established; and - a driving unit (50), to be programmed by the user so as to command the operational condition indicator means (40), when such temporal condition occurs, said temporal condition being defined by one of the conditions of at least one time lapse elapsed as from the moment the user programmed the driving unit (50) and at least a time lapse previously determined and defined by the user. 2^a)- MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA, according to claim 1 , characterized by the fact of including a monitoring unit (30) comprehending: - a data receiving unit (31), operatively connected to the driving unit (50), so as to receive from the former electronic signals corresponding to the established temporal condition; - a time marking unit (32), operatively connected to the driving unit (50), through the data receiving unit (31), so as to be initialized and kept in an operation condition, until the established temporal condition is achieved; - a command unit (33), operatively connected to the time marking unit (32) and the operational condition indicator means (40), so as to command the energizing of the latter when the time marking unit (32) indicates the occurrence of a given temporal condition. 3^a)- MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA, in accordance to the claim 2, characterized by the fact that a driving unit(50) is comprised of at least an informative screen (51), presenting the capacity of showing the data relative to at least one storing compartment (11); screen operating elements (52), operatively connected to a data receiving unit (31) and to the time marking unit (32); and operational functions driving elements (53), operatively connected to the informative screen (51 ) and to the monitoring unit (30).

4^a)- MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA, in accordance to claim 3, characterized by the fact that the time marking unit (32) is programmable to show each previously determined time instant defined by the user. 5- Agenda, in accordance to claim 4, characterized by the fact that it comprises of a lid (20), articulated on the storing structure body (10), so as to cover the front face of it, in a protecting condition. 6- Agenda, in accordance to claim 5, characterized by the fact that the driving unit (50) is mounted on the internal surface of the lid (20), turned toward the storing structure frontal face (10).

7^a)- MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA, in accordance to claim 6, characterized by the fact that the operational condition indicator means (40) includes at least one compartment indicative element (41 ) mounted on one of the storing structure frontal parts (10) and the interior face of the lid (20), each one lined up to a respective storing compartment (11), said compartment indicative element (41) being operatively e electronically connected to the monitoring unit (30), so as to receive from it a signal corresponding to an indicative condition to the user that a given temporal condition associated with said storing compartment (11 ) has been achieved.

8^a)- MEDICINE ELECTRONIC AGENDA, in accordance to claim 3, characterized by the fact that the operational function driving elements (53) activate at least one indicative element of a given temporal condition.