Chronic diseases can last for decades and require a disciplined approach to medication administration plus a lifestyle change. Among the most common chronic ailments are cardiovascular disease, diabetes type 2, respiratory diseases (asthma), and cancer3. Globally, one-third of adults suffer from one or multiple chronic conditions. Three in five global deaths are due to diabetes,…
Behavior is defined as the action or set of activities in response to an internal or external stimulus2. Behavior is a key risk factor for individual and public health in multiple ways. It impacts disease prevention, seeking medical attention, adhering to the prescribed treatment, and also delivery of healthcare for several diseases and also for…
Adherence to treatment in adolescents is a major challenge for doctors and healthcare professionals. Adherence rates in the adolescent population vary widely from 10% to 89% for chronic diseases2. There are many repercussions of low adherence in teens, with obvious consequences for themselves, their families, and the health care system. For chronic conditions, low adherence…
Adherence measurement is a complex task, which can be performed through various direct and indirect methods Each method has its advantages and limitations with no universal consensus on a gold standard technique The use of combinatorial methods might offer the best solution. Further, there is a need to optimize techniques for different populations as well…
Non-adherence to medication is a major challenge to treatment success and a significant burden on the healthcare system1-3. The existing interventions are based on retrospective measurements of non-adherence in patients already undergoing treatment and are therefore limited in improving future medication adherence4. Predictive analytics can help in identifying potentially high-risk non-adherent patient groups at the…
Pharmacogenetics or the genetic variations in the human population giving rise to a variable drug response is well-known in clinical research1. The quest for personalized medicine based on pharmacogenomics using an individual’s genetic content has gained traction since the completion of the first draft of the human genome project2,3. Pharmacogenomics-based personalized prescriptions can help in…
Current technological interventions focus either on reminding the patient or on tracking the pill removal from the packaging. However, they do not address the actual act of taking the medicine1. The ingestible sensors or trackable pills have marked a technological revolution in the area of medication adherence. In addition, motion-sensor-based wearables are likely will mark…
Medication adherence, or the extent to which patients take medications as prescribed, is remarkably low and it has been reported that typically, patients adhere to about 50% of prescribed medications1. Factors causing medication non-adherence are varied and can be grouped into patient-related, therapy-related, and healthcare system-related1. Some of the common reasons are forgetfulness, adverse effects,…
Pandemics are not new to the humankind, and the coronavirus is just the latest (and most probably not the last) of them. A considerable number of the pandemics were dealt with medically, through vaccination.1,2 This was the case for polio, smallpox, rubella, to name but few. These diseases had been killing great numbers of people…
Nudging is a powerful tool in helping people make the right decisions without forcing them to do so. It has been widely used by public authorities to help the general public adopt behaviors beneficial to them, that otherwise they would tend not to adopt. In his groundbreaking book “Nudge”, Nobel prize winner Richard Thaler gives…