A friend writes:
I am sweeping the kitchen and just found one of my brother-in-law’s Parkinson’s pills [Ropinirole].
Every time he has to take it, he drops it. It is tiny and, well, he has Parkinson’s. I can’t tell you how many times the kids end up on the floor looking for the pill he just dropped.
Are there any hacks for a Parkinson’s patient to manage those tiny pills?
For those who aren’t familiar with the term “hack,” its original meaning is “an appropriate application of ingenuity.” I’ve written about home health hacks here and here and I’m actively seeking ways to connect health hackers/makers/inventors with the people who need them. I was thrilled when my friend texted me with this question and I’d love to help.
One idea I had: put a dab of honey on your finger and use that to pick up the pill.
Another idea: ask gardeners how they manage the sorting and handling of tiny seeds.
If you’ve got an idea, please share it in the comments below!
(Image courtesy of Are W on flickr.)
The Hermesetas brand of artificial sweeteners has a push-button dispenser package for their teeny weeny mini sweetener tablets. It’s a plastic box with a push-down top, which dispenses one teeny tablet at a time. It has a clear front so you can see how many are inside. I think the Hermesetas package is sealed or glued shut so it would be hard to hack using it for this, and the tablets are REALLY small, but I think the concept might work. See http://www.amazon.com/Hermesetas-Stevia-Sweet-Pack-Tablets/dp/B0076RI35Y
Thanks, Jenny, for making the jump from Twitter.
Check out what Christy Collins shared: a “dial seed sower”
https://jungseed.com/dp.asp?pID=53075&c=664&p=Dial+Seed+Sower
I wonder if this can be used to dispense tiny pills? Or if there are different sizes for different seeds?
I realize this is an older thread, but I needed help with this the other night for my mother who has arthritis and has been spilling her pills all over the place. She can’t hold the small pills and has a hard time with the bottles and lids. I ordered some salt and pepper shakers that have a rotating dispenser, small holes for seasoning BUT also has a wider one that will work for different sizes of pills. I plan to put a label on them for her (either a reusable label or with a sharpie and painter’s tape.) The lids are easy to remove to refill. I got two different types for her to try: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WFCFMD2?ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_title&th=1
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08YP7RQF4?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details
Thank you, Lori! The conversation is never over online — particularly on this thread. Great tips!
I have neuropathy and I have a really tough time picking up small pills because I can’t feel them. I happened upon a “bead grabber” at a craft store and it is incredibly helpful
> bead grabber
What a great idea! I googled and found they’re also called diamond pickers, jewel grabbers, etc. Example: https://www.wish.com/product/5cd67ae0c3c31106ed0049c2
Years ago the same sort of thing was used by computer repair technicians to pick up tiny screws. (I probably have one in the basement.)
See, all these accommodations are just extensions of things that “normal” people already need, but it takes a special perspective to apply it to new situations!
Wow what does it look like
Lori, I love these – what a great idea! I had no idea such things exist.
The illustrations and videos on the product pages are helpful.
Sounds gross but I lick the end of my finger and usually the pill will stick (pour a few pills out on something with an edge). Honey would work too. Also wonder if they could just capsule the tiny pill in soluble capsule at pharmacy to make it less tiny. Or pour on spoon, flick extras off and take it that way.
Not gross at all (to me, anyway). Great ideas!
The universe works in mysterious ways. I posted this on Sunday morning and then, around 4pm, got an email from Eli Pollard, the executive director of the World Parkinson Coalition.
See:
http://www.worldpdcoalition.org/?page=Staff
She is in town for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology and wondered if I could meet for a drink at 8pm. We will be on a panel together at Stanford Medicine X in September but have never met in person.
So there I was, less than 12 hours after posting this, talking about it with the person who organizes the largest meeting in the world of people living with, treating, and researching Parkinson’s.
She agrees with you, Catherine, that licking your finger is the best mode. You don’t always have honey handy, she pointed out.
More to come, of course, but I had to share this wonderful serendipitous moment.
Try weighted wrist weight to dampen the tremor. (But evidence is mixed for this in non-essential tremors; it’s been more patient experiences.) Also using blister packs and pillboxes will save the hassle of opening separate bottles. Finally check to make sure Meds are not contributing to additional movement disorders. Best of luck getting a ‘handle on things’.
What can an Elderly person do to pick up spilled pills on the floor at home. Is there such a thing as a pill vacuum cleaner??
Seriously though if you can’t reach the floor?! ♀️
Nancy, my experience in such situations is that prevention is the only answer: handle your pill dispensing in some kind of a walled area, like a miniature hockey rink. Try searching “tray with folding legs” – I found this on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Home-table-folding-breakfast-Bamboo/dp/B00PHS97EU
A challenge with such trays is that if the legs flop open, it’s hard to carry, so I’d prefer one where the legs can be latched in the up position. Or get one without legs, if you only want it for countertop: https://www.amazon.com/Serving-tray-bamboo-handles-breakfast/dp/B07H2R14L8
I shared your question on Twitter and received a few ideas:
1) Vacuum nozzle with nylon over the end
2) Do you think a small desktop vacuum like this might work?
3) Drafting table brush and tiny dust pan.
4) Would a grabbing tool with a sticky tape on the end work? Something like a lint roller strip on an extended handle/swiffer type contraption?
I take 6 different prescription drugs for Parkinson’s, 6 times a day in five different combinations with 6 different time intervals… And I also am much more clumsy and stiff in my fingers when a dose is due, which is why I prepare my doses for a week or two in advance. I am also very careful not to drop any pills when I am about to take them. My biggest challenge when it comes to PD meds is finding a practical dispenser that’s not too big and not ugly-looking… I would love to see a good PD-med hack!
We use these from amazon “Tubbs”
Bought enough for all doses in a week and labeled each with a marker. Keep each container in a muffin tin.
Thanks, L! I found GoTubbs, an open-with-one-hand pill box. Is that the same thing?
Thanks, Sara & Hayman! I so appreciate your making the jump to write comments here so there is an archive.
My tweet has generated a great conversation if anyone wants to check it out:
https://twitter.com/SusannahFox/status/589815663788720128
Keep the ideas coming!
I don’t have Parkinsons but I have CF and I take about 60 pills a day. Among these are steroids (prednisolone). I take 4 per day. They are tiny pills packaged in a way that almost guarantees some will fall on the floor. I have no shake and I have good dexterity. I have 20/20 vision and quick reflexes. I regularly drop them. I don’t have a hack. I wonder how older people with worse eyesight and maybe some arthritis cope with these pills. I know a lot of older people take steroids for respiratory problems.
The other problem is the pills are so tiny that sometimes I think I have swallowed them all but one will still be in my mouth. They can nestle between teeth and gum. After a while it is obvious because they start to dissolve and the foul taste gives it away. I am very good at swallowing pills so it is not my technique.
I have not found a good hack yet.
The answer is bigger pills. Why are they so small?
For a while I thought they were deliberately made tiny to make them more likely to be dropped so Pharma would sell more as the pills dropped on the floor would be discarded. I don’t think that’s true though. I guess people just pick them up and take them anyway but that’s not hygienic.
I have tried to take it up with the company that makes the pills but they have zero interest.
I think it is so difficult to get anywhere with things like this because the person who pays the product supplier is not the person using the product. As long as the supplier gets paid, they don’t care.
I would love to see a mechanism that that ensured patient experience fed back into the their healthcare provider’s purchasing criteria, particularly where the issues impact on safety and adherence in the real world.
Until that revolution happens, I will continue to hunt for a hack.
Fantastic comment, thanks Oli!
My hope is that by shining a spotlight on what is turning out to be a more common problem than I thought, we can draw attention to it. Maybe nobody who develops those tiny pills has ever actually seen anyone try to handle them? It makes me a little queasy to think about, but not every company is like Procter & Gamble, which requires its executives to do fieldwork in the communities it wants to serve.
See:
Why Procter & Gamble is more disruptive than you
Another piece of the puzzle: why are some pills so huge and others so tiny? Here’s one of my favorite posts on this topic (Disclosure: I’m an advisor to Iodine):
Why Pills are Pills, Patches are Patches, and Inhalers are for Inhaling: An Iodine Explainer
I love that response! My husband has Parkisons and I have Arthritis. Between us we must drop at least 5 pills a day! I have resorted to honey in a spoon and putting the pills in that while standing over a table. Then they are easier to stick on a finger. I am thinking of getting dog or cat pill dispensers! We just pick up dropped ones with a long handled brush and pan and take them! B&P new and kept for that!
Susannah, this enduring issue makes me wonder:
What if we changed our effectiveness criteria for drug products from “manufacturing uses the right ingredients” to instead say “the *product* in the consumer’s hand makes it into their stomach”?
It would be so great to reward innovation in med delivery as well as med development. That’s patient-centered thinking.
I love that idea! Will ponder and keep my eyes open for examples of companies that see that as part of their mission.
Maybe we could really go nuts and ask: “How might we create *customer delight* in the experience of taking meds?”
Customer delight is defined as including an element of [happy] surprise, and is said to build loyalty and engagement, which every pharma company I know is quite interested in.
Parkinson’s is a multi-faceted disability. It’s not only hand tremors that make pill taking such a challenge but it is also the compromised eye muscles causing distorted visions for the person coping with it all. Dropped pills are dangerous for children and also pets. Both are able to spot the fallen pills as it were shiny pennies. We resort to putting the pills in a little applesauce and if handling a utensil is not as problematic as fingering an object – it’s an alternative. The pills stick to the applesauce and they go down smoothly, as well.
Thank you, Marilyn!
Another suggestion from a Twitter colleague: put the pills inside a Fig Newton. I’d be worried about accidentally biting into it but maybe that’s not a concern?
Great idea!
> put the pills inside a Fig Newton
My wife the retired veterinarian thinks we humans are SILLY: anyone who’s ever tried to get a pet to take a pill knows this trick. 🙂
(Seriously!)
I don’t have an answer to the hack question (and thank you for re-posting the proper, original meaning) but I want to point to another dimension of the issue: it’s what I’ll call the utter disrespect for, disregard for, and ignoring of the practical needs of “the ultimate stakeholder,” the patient.
Please say double-hi to Eli for me. Because of Sara Rigarre, I got invited to speak at the Word Parkinson Congress in late 2013, and it was astounding, because a large proportion (what, Sara, 30%??) of the audience was patients. One palpable difference compared to most speeches is that these people laughed and applauded in places where doctors and researchers don’t, as the video shows. (Free registration required; my 24 minute talk starts at 1 hr 2 minutes in.) (The slides are not synchronized properly – a production problem.)
Next point: do you know the wonderful book Periipatetic Pursuit of Parkinson, conceived and written and produced by patients? I’ll dig out my copy and see if it has anything about pill handling.
Lots more later – gotta get on a call.
The other thing I want to add is how useful it would be for medicine (drug developers as well as the FDA) to study and adopt the discipline called usability. In Let Patients Help I express this as “Make it easy to do the right thing.”
Could we start a discussion about “pill usability”?
In every other industry if it’s hard for the end user to use your product in its intended way, you go out of business or a competitor eventually kicks your butt, so eventually all survivors have learned to make it usable or suffer the consequence. In medicine(s), entry of new competitors is far tougher, so this tends not to surface – instead people write scholarly articles about patients not being “compliant.”
Wouldn’t it be great if developers and the FDA could look at whether the product can readily be used as intended, by the people it’s intended to be used by?
The retail pharmacy industry has figured this out, with the introduction of caps that are child-safe and/or far more usable by arthritic hands. Why not apply exactly the same thinking to the physical “package” that carries the active ingredient from bottle to body?
(Victor Montori at Mayo talks about “minimally disruptive medicine,” i.e. the physician prescribing things that actually work in the patient’s actual life with all its complications. This “pill usability” issue seems to be an expression of that thinking.)
Thanks, Dave!! Some of the replies on Twitter have been from people who imply that the FDA *does* look at delivery mechanism (pill, patch, etc) during the approval process, but clearly we could use a refresh.
I’m reminded of my favorite story about patient-centered design: a redesign of the auto-injector for epinephrine. (Not only is it a great story, it’s had such a significant effect on my own #1 worry: treatment of anaphylaxis).
The original cigar-shaped design was a Cold War design and a huge step forward from the old vial-syringe-needle kit.
People who carry an Epi-pen are grateful for it — but guess what? Its awkward size means that not everyone carries it as often as they are supposed to. But it was the only choice. A whole industry grew up around ankle holsters and fanny packs that are fashion crimes of the first order.
Beyond the awkward shape, the non-intuitive design meant that bystanders often didn’t know what to do with it — or accidentally stabbed themselves instead of the person having an allergic reaction.
Eric and Evan Edwards grew up with life-threatening allergies vowed to design a better auto-injector — and they did. It’s the Auvi-Q — designed to fit into a jeans or shirt pocket AND the usability is much more intuitive AND it talks you through the injection. They were empowered to say no to the poor design that hadn’t changed since the 1940s and 50s.
Read Joyce Lee’s post if you’re interested in learning more about the Auvi-Q.
I truly don’t know if there is a reason why these pills have to be so tiny. Maybe this has all been discussed and we just have to live with it — and create hacks to handle it. But I’m grateful for everyone contributing to the conversation!
Well, if they do consider usability, evidently they’re failing bigtime for Parkinson’s, eh?
I wonder if any of those tweeps know of a way to report “Yo, this is not working here.”
Dave, thanks for alerting me to this thread and for the plug for our book. There isn’t anything specifically on the topic of tiny pills although we do mention pill rolling (a very different issue.)
I have no tremor with PD but do have the general clumsiness that can come with the rigid form. My solution for tiny pills and motor challenged hands is to use a larger box, like the flat metal box mints and some fruit candies come in (approximately 2 x 21/2 inches). I transfer my daily mix from my weekly pill organizer into it). The hinged lid is easy to open and reasonably secure in a pocket or purse. It is much easier to fish out one small pill using this system and I have less fear of dropping the whole bunch in the process of opening a smaller, less cooperative box.
Of course getting it to your mouth is another issue. A friend and I spent 10 minutes yesterday looking for a dropped pill while keeping the dog (who was very willing to help) out of range.
I’m a product design student at university looking for a way to improve the lives of those with chronic diseases, primarily focused on hand tremors. I stumbled across this post whilst researching and wondered if anyone had found the perfect solution yet?
I’ve found the “Zuup Pill Dispenser” and believe this might be a suitable product to aid administering pills with shaking hands – just thought I’d post in case someone took a fancy!
Hi Tory, thanks for the comment — so glad you found this post. I don’t think anyone has concluded anything except to note that this issue is a problem for some — not all — people with hand tremor.
Since I wrote this, I had the honor of being the moderator of a panel at Stanford Medicine X that included two patients who are involved in designing better products (both real and virtual) and a leader in the patient advocacy/research world.
Here’s the panel description, just fyi:
http://medicinex.stanford.edu/conf/conference/event/101
And here’s the conference YouTube channel — you might be interested since it’s a very design-friendly (even design-happy) medical conference:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK1chhgXNHf7iB5mlqzXODA
Try roadeavour.
Hi Joie! Thanks for the suggestion — for those who haven’t yet clicked through, Roadeavour sells handy travel accessories, including pill organizers.
Using a pill organiser solves just one section of my problem. I have a ‘one month pill organiser’ with each day’s section split into AM and PM for the 4 tablets I take in the morning and a different set of 4 tablets in the afternoon. My problem (and I don’t have trembling hands) lies in that I have to get the tablets (they’re all different sizes) out of the foil containers and THAT’s when they jump in the air to land on the table, another chair or on the floor! It’s extremely irritating because firstly the foil is quite difficult to break open and then I have to angle the pack to try to lever the individual tablets out of the packaging I would point out that, in Feb 2016 I badly broke my wrist and was in plaster for 3 months and was spoiled by my GP allowing me to have my meds dispensed from the chemists in dosette boxes. Since moving earlier this year, and registering with a new GP, they have refused to let me have my meds in a dosette box saying it’s not justifiable for the small amount of tablets I take. What they can’t appreciate is the aggravation I go through every month just to fill up my pill organiser because the tablets are so difficult to release from their foil packaging. I then have to work methodically through each day of the month to ensure I’ve put the right tablets in the AM half as opposed to the other tablets which go in the PM side. I’m not particularly arthritic, but bending down to pick up tablets that have spun up in the air and landed on the floor, is not actually a hygienic way of sorting out my tablets! I agree that there’s little thought to the end user and their ability to deal with sorting out their medication!
Wow — thank you for this detailed comment! I’m now picturing the tablets jumping and spinning in the air, just as you describe. A great example of how exasperating it is to have people talk about “compliance” when they do not see how hard you are working to keep up with an ill-designed system.
Thanks Susannah. My GP reluctantly, finally, agreed to let me have dosette boxes for the 5 tablets I take, 3 of which are morning AND evening. Now I have a new problem with the dosette boxes! You can no longer pick up a month’s supply and, whilst the pharmacist is given 4 dated prescriptions and makes them up a month at a time, you can only collect one a week. You’d think that wouldn’t be a problem, but it is. That’s because the date of the scrip is the date on which you can collect your dosette box. So that means that you can’t take your morning medication of a new box until you’ve picked it up – so you’re always taking the first day’s medication late! The pharmacy say there’s nothing they can do, they can’t release the dosette box until the date the GP has dated the scrip. The GP can’t understand the problem. They will change the date of the scrip but that just alters the date on which you can collect it – they can’t seem to grasp the concept of being able to pick up the dosette box the day before – the system simply doesn’t allow for this!
How about a way to open a capsule with hand tremors? My son does not swallow pills, but needs to empty a capsule into apple sauce.
My husband’s challenge is taking his Parkinson’s pills at night, reaching bedside table for them and water. With tremoring hands and some dementia, he often doesn’t know he’s dropped them.
That is a significant challenge! I shared it on Twitter in hopes of bringing in some expert advice.
From Sarah (@Power2B on Twitter):
“Dropping pills is a problem for anyone with hand issues (eg., arthritis). A shallow silicone bowl to tip pills into lets you see what you have & makes it easier to get pills, by gripping table, not allowing pills to roll away, & providing wall to help catch.”
E.g. the ezpz Happy Bowl
Cup with a lid & straw for the water. And maybe a double-shot sized shot glass for the meds. We need the Med cup too big to choke on but small enough to get pills out of & also tall enough that it is clear if it’s been knocked over. Maybe a contrasting color mouse pad below to see if a pill fell out. Other thoughts?
When you get to your “Golden Years” with a multitude of bone and joint issues you are lucky to hold on to your coffee cup let alone a pill bottle. When the meds hit the floor then you have the eyesight issue come into play and if your meds are a controlled substance you might as well kiss them good-bye. It is infuriating to be put in this position after decades of hard manual labor and neither pharmacies or insurance companies care. If I sound bitter it is because I am.
On a different post, Mike Waler wrote:
“Don’t know if you ever found a “hack” to tiny pills with trembling hands issue, but here is a sure fire fix. It worked great for me. Go on Amazon and search pill counter trays. I paid $8.00 for mine. These are small plastic trays with built up edges. What you are looking for is one that has an open end in one corner and then a long recessed half circular edge on the other side. This circular edge will have a clear lid that folds and closes over the tray part of the 1/2 circle. One end of this circular feature is closed and one is open. Most will have a spatula included. Pour some pills on to the tray. Use the spatula or your finger to move the pills you need out of the open corner and into a cup or something similar. Move the ones you don’t need into the “circular side and close the cover. The circular side has a funnel shaped opening, dump the extra pills you didn’t need back into your medicine bottle. Take the cup with the pill or pills you needed and tip the cup into your mouth; have your water or other beverage ready and wash them down. Works perfect, no more spilled pills. Before I tried this I lost 1 pill for every 10 I got in my mouth.”
(I’m leaving his comment where it was originally posted but wanted to cross-post it here so future readers will benefit.)
Great idea! There are many such products on Amazon. The illustrations on this one seem particularly helpful to understand what the product does.
Pill Counting Tray with Improved Multi Function Stainless Steel Spatula, Pill Counter for Nurse Pharmacist Daily Counting Medicine Use https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FWSTXBZ/
I set up my moms pills every week for her. She has essential tremors. I put them in a plastic cup so she can pour them into her mouth. Works great.
I notice they make pill dispensers for animals…. Lixit pill popper at Chewy was reading description and it can accommodate different size pills and liquid medications too!
My Mom has tremors and arthritis, it is very difficult to grab and insert it into her mouth.
I wish they can make something like this but maybe in a spoon shape.
Homeopathic medicine comes in tubes, which will dispense one small pill at a time into the lid. The tubes can be taken apart to be refilled, but will need to be taped up between fills.
Oo oo! I don’t know if this is exactly what you found but this looks exciting!
https://www.behance.net/gallery/24491439/QuickPill-Homeopathy-pill-dispenser
I have a very mild tremor (“essential tremor”) but it occasionally is annoying enough that I can imagine some future day when this might be a welcome addition.
I hope the inventors patent them so nobody else can steal the design and charge $8 a bottle 🙂
Update: Peer-to-peer connections, open-source design, and new manufacturing capabilities may have yielded a solution.
Here’s the story:
TikTok Users Rally to Help Elite Athlete with Parkinson’s: They’re building a pill bottle that’s easier to use with shaky hands.
https://www.freethink.com/articles/pill-bottle-parkinsons
It’s a great innovation story. Here’s the best part:
“The goal now is to get the prototype to people with Parkinson’s for feedback.
Exler is offering to ship a bottle anywhere in the U.S. if people either Venmo him $5 to donate to the Michael J. Fox foundation for Parkinson’s Research or show proof they’ve made a donation directly.”
That’s David Exler, aka @HungryEngineer on TikTok and on Etsy. If you are not a TikTok user, it might be easiest to contact him through his Etsy shop. If you need help, please comment below and I’ll see what I can do to put you in touch (I don’t know him but I’m happy to take on the task of reaching out).
A later article on Choi’s project: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-monday-edition-1.5868846/how-tiktok-users-designed-a-better-pill-bottle-for-people-with-parkinson-s-1.5868848
Hello everyone. I’d like to share a solution that has been working well for us.
My sister has a cognitive disability as well as severe tremors, and takes many different kinds of medicine daily. Lost pills were a frequent issue.
My solution was to purchase empty capsules (for example: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SH33NBN), and then put the pills *into* those capsules. After doing this, each capsule contains a few pills. The capsules are easier for my sister to grab and hold onto, and now there are less moving pieces (two large capsules instead of many small pills).
It’s worked perfectly for us. I hope it helps others, too.
That is an amazing idea. My aunt has Parkinson’s and we are really struggling with the pill spill issue. She takes so many pills. We keep them in little cups, but then, tipping then toward herself, she still spills them. I’ve no idea how to handle it better, except to put a tray underneath her. Today it really came up because apparently one of her meds dropped to the floor at some point, and now my grandmother’s puppy is very ill. 🙁
I am clueless as to how to ensure the pills reach her mouth. I believe with her various conditions she has lessened sensitivity as well, making it harder for her to even be aware of what she’s swallowing or isn’t. I thought recently about a suggestion from her speech therapist to take them in applesauce. (Heads up: we were also told ascorbic acid can have an affect on some meds, always ask doctor if okay first.)
It seems in my mind that would lend to the pills “staying” in the applesauce pretty well. Pudding would be better, and pudding was recommended, too, but she has a lot of problems swallowing pudding. She used to love it.
I know this sounds bizarre, but I was thinking, if there was some sort of a gentle, slow-incline “funnel” that the pills could be put into by the caregiver, and then Deb would take. I have wondered, for people who are extremely mentally ill and need to take pills, or who have severe head tremors, if there isn’t something like this. I certainly don’t mean to force or any sort of harshness. I was thinking of something that would aid and make it much easier to swallow without the worry of what has been swallowed and what hasn’t.
I’m so glad you found this conversation — and I’m so sorry about the puppy who ate a dropped pill. That is awful!
Thanks for the tips you shared. Let’s all keep the conversation & ideas flowing.
I stumbled across this post while searching for an aid for my wife. We are both seniors and she struggles with Peripheral Neuropothy which impairs nerve function at her fingers and feet. She has no shakes but finds it difficult holding a pill and placing it in a compartment in a pill sorter. I find numerous pills she has dropped. She has searched internet sites for an assist, and has decided to try specialized tweezers that I could coat with Plasti-Dip. Thank you Susannah Fox for managing this site. It might be helpful to broaden your audience to include other ailments such as Peripheral Neuropothy if it takes numbers to get attention. Sincerely thanks again.
Thank you, Kelly! I’m so happy to know that you found this post & discussion useful. Hopefully you saw the article posted above about the pill dispenser that is in development thanks to Jimmy Choi’s TikTok community. Let’s keep posting ideas and solutions as we find them.
My Parkinson disease symptoms started at the age of 47. The fingers on my left hand were stiff and were difficult to move. People noticed that my walk was not normal. I was often asked if I was hurt. I noticed nothing different about my walk. It was difficult getting up from a chair and getting out of a car. I was diagnosed a year later ,it was the onset of tremors starting in my right hand that caused my other symptoms to be recognized as Parkinson’s.. I am now 59. With the new herbal medicine for Parkinson I purchased from Multivitamincare . org was my only way to get rid of my PD,the herbal formula effectively reversed my condition and alleviated all my symptoms, people are suffering from this Parkinson disease due to lack of information.
Came across your site…I have a similar problem: car accident put me in a wheelchair & left me with hand tremors, no strength, no feeling in my fingers, & unable to grasp things & I can not open pill dispenser (far less fill them). A machine to do these chores cost $3k. I can’t afford that. Any ideas? Thanks to all.
Thanks for the question, Judy. I’ll share it on some social platforms to see if people have ideas. I hope we can crowdsource a solution for you.
Hii… me and my friends from university of Toronto have come across a solution that can be developed for this problem.. we have applied for the fund and incubation… I hope will do a good job for it by the summer… let you guys know soon.
Awesome! Please do keep us posted, Nirmal. Good luck!
The device only focuses on helping people in their old age or Parkinson’s to consume tablets easily… For example, this device will be an container that can push out the number of tablets needed in the time of prescription, and when the containers end comes in contact with the mouth by picking it, it will pushout all the tablets into the mouth….Will this device help you guys… I would love to have creative criticism from you guys, so that we can develop this product the best for you guys.
I shared your question on Twitter so hopefully some folks will give you feedback. Please let us know if you can share a prototype drawing — maybe on a public social site like Twitter, Instagram, Threads?