| 저자 |
Jong Min Kim1, Donghwi Park1, Byung Joo Lee1, Lee Hyomin1, Ju Young Cho1, Hyunseok Moon1, Sungwon Park1, Zeeihn Lee1†, Kwang Jae Yu1* |
Background
Currently, as our society enters the aging society, the population of the elderly, particularly the elderly living alone, is increasing. And these elderly people are usually accompanied by chronic diseases and need long-term medication. In these elderly people, however there are many problems in using pills safely and regularly. Patients with dementia, especially Alzheimer’s disease, often forget to take medicine because of memory impairment, or even take medicine duplicately. So, it is difficult to take medication regularly in patients with AD.
Objective
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness and safety about the drug compliance when using ICT-based systems with smart drug kit, including the function of patient identification, of recording the scene of taking medicine for confirming an accurate medication, of informing caregivers and medical staffs if the medicine is not applied.
Subjects and Methods
108 patients with mild dementia who were diagnosed by Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder-IV, and who were taking or are expected to take an acetylcholine esterase initiator are recruited prospectively. And these subjects randomly were distrubuted in a 1:1 ratio to clinical trial groups using ICT-based systems with smart drug kit (Group A) and control groups (Group B).
To evaluate the efficacy of ICT-based systems with smart drug kit, the drug compliance, changes in cognitive function and ADL were investigated. And each evaluation was conducted at 12 weeks and 24 weeks after starting the medication.
Results
In the result, the drug compliance assessment (taking compliance, timing compliance, and drug holiday ) in the group A was significantly lower than that of the Group B (control group).
However, there were no significant differences between the two groups in an investigation of a medication, and no significant differences in K-MMSE, CDR, CDR-SB, Barthel ADL and IADL. In addition, there were no significant difference in the degree of changes between the time of visit. There was no significant difference in GDS between the two groups, but there was a statistically significant improvement of the visit points in both groups. In the satisfaction survey of group A, satisfaction of ICT was 35.81 ± 5.24.
The safety assessment analysis found that 28 cases of adverse events were reported in the group A, 37 reported in the group B. However, there was no significant difference between the two groups and no adverse event directly related to the study.
Conclusion
In this study, there was no statistically significant difference in the drug compliance between the two groups. However, clinically there was a significant improvement in the drug compliance, and safety of ICT-based systems with smart drug kit was confirmed in this study. Therefore, in the future, clinical applications of ICT-based systems with smart drug kit may be useful in increasing the drug compliance in patients with mild dementia. |
