P3-29-1 - Clinical Application of “Your Manager”

Abstract

Objective: Recently regimens including oral anticancer agents have increasingly been used. Checking and maintaining patients' adherence to these regimens are now issues. “Your Manager” is a medication management system that electrically records times at which drugs were removed from a PTP sheet. We report our investigation of the adherence of 8patients whose medications were managed by “Your Manager” and on the utility of this system.Methods: Informed patients treated with S1 capsules were studied between April 2013 and December 2013. “Your Manager” was used until the patient terminated its use or until the end of S1 treatment.Results: Eight patients [3 males 5 females median age 62.5 years (52-80)] participated in the study. In all cases the medication was taken without problems and “Your Manager” was confirmed to be clinically acceptable. Following the first use 2 patients requested discontinuation of S1 (difficult to remove drug from package burdensome to take system to the hospital). Three patients completed treatment and 2 are still using the system. The one remaining patient switched to an orally disintegrating tablet because of swallowing difficulty and discontinued system use.Six of the 8 patients were able to take the medication in accordance with the dosage regimen. Although one patient was temporarily off the medication due to an adverse effect (vomiting) the records were consistent with the patient's self-reports. One patient and the patient's spouse suffered from dementia and demonstrated poor adherence and therefore discontinued S1 treatment.Discussion: Some patients noted that drug removal became difficult which indicated the need for improvement to enhance coping for elderly women and patients with restricted finger movements such as from numbness or rheumatoid arthritis. Other patients however were able to use the system without difficulty demonstrating the effectiveness of this system for checking adherence.