You may, or may not be aware that my memory is appalling. It’s a challenge that many of us with chronic illnesses face. Fatigue, pain, brain fog and other cognitive difficulties all contribute to memory problems. For so many of us, taking medication is a vital way of managing our symptoms and being able to function as ‘normally’ possible. But remembering to take medication consistently can be impossible. For quite a while, I had family members reminding me to take my medication. However, I recently came across the Medsmart App, which has helped me manage my medication more independently.
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The Medsmart App is not only designed help people remember to take their medication, but also as a nifty tool for storing and sharing a variety of medical information with medical professionals and other care givers. So, I thought I’d share a little review and demo to give you a taster of what the app is capable of!
Inputting medication into the Medsmart App is done using your medication’s barcode, which you can either scan in or type manually. For the most part, this was fantastic for me – scanning a barcode avoids spelling/typing issues that I commonly experience with my dyslexia and Mears-Irlen syndrome. Unfortunately, pharmacies seem to love to put their labels over the barcode. So I did have to get Dan to peel the pharmacy labels off two of the three medications I’m still able to take in pregnancy. But, this is a one time thing – once medication is added to your app’s medicine cabinet, you don’t have to keep inputting it.
One of my medications – Folic Acid – is dispensed to me in both boxes and pill bottles. Luckily, while using the Medsmart App, I’ve only had them dispensed in boxes with barcodes. I’m not sure how the app would work for medications that don’t have a barcode available, for example pill bottles. I looked, but couldn’t find a way to manually input medication details for the odd occasions when a barcode isn’t available.
The Barcode scan comes up with the brand name and dose. If, like me, you prefer to use the chemical name (I find this more useful with medical professionals) you can change it easily. For example when scanning the barcode, my antihistamine came up as Phenegran rather than Promethazine HCL. But, I was able to choose a custom name before adding it was added to my medicine cabinet.
When adding a medication into your medicine cabinet on the Medsmart App, you’re prompted to include the condition you’re taking the medication for. This is a great feature, particularly for those who have lots of medical conditions and take a number of medications, as well as those with memory problems. It’s a very handy aide memoire for when you’re at an appointment and a doctor asks you what medications you’re taking and why!
The next screen in the process of adding medication asks you to confirm that you’re not allergic to any of the ingredients in the medication. I love, love, LOVE the allergy features of this app! I have to be so careful to check every ingredient in medications I take. This isn’t something I have to do just once when I start a new medication, but continuously, as manufacturers can change their ingredients without warning. While I, and my lovely pharmacy team, are all hot on checking ingredients, very very occasionally something slips past us. So having this feature in the Medsmart app is another layer of protection if you like, to make sure I don’t accidentally take something I’m allergic to.
Once your medication details have been added to the app, you’re able to set up your reminder(s). Here you’re able to add how many tablets you need to take and at what time.
On the first day of using the Medsmart App, it got to 11pm and I suddenly realised that I hadn’t taken my medication – I’d had no notification! I checked the settings (after taking my tablets) and realised that the app was set to not display notifications. I’m not sure why this happened, but I just wanted to mention it, so if you download this (or any other reminder) app, you check that notifications are switched on as a matter of priority. Otherwise you could end up missing important medication!
The reminder alarm goes off once, at the time you’ve specified when setting up your medicine cabinet. You can then take your medication and mark on the app each of the medications that you’ve taken. Simple!
For me personally, I’d love to have a ‘take all’ option for marking medication as taken on the Medsmart App. It’s ok to mark three separate tablets off, but it would be annoying for me to have to mark each of the medications I was on pre-pregnancy individually – there were a lot!
However, I can see the benefit of having to manually mark medications as taken. For those who aren’t able to remember which medication they’re supposed to take, it’s great to have to tick medications off individually. It serves as an extra way of checking that all of the correct medication has been taken.
I’d also love to have the option to set the app to give more than one notification for each reminder. A few times, I’ve been doing something when my Medsmart App has beeped to tell me to take my tablets – often eating dinner. By the time I’ve finished eating, I’ve usually forgotten that I’m supposed to take my tablets. I’ve also gone to take medication after a notification, got distracted and ended up forgetting. An additional reminder if I haven’t marked my medication as taken would be really helpful in these situations.
If you have an iWatch, you can have your Medsmart App notifications come through via your watch. At present, you can’t mark medication as taken from your iWatch, but this feature is currently being developed. I love the discreet nature of having my watch tap me with medication notifications.
As I’ve said above, my favourite feature of the Medsmart App is in relation to allergies. As well as checking and having access to the ingredients of the medication you’re taking, there’s also a section in the app to keep a list of your allergies and intolerances. I’ve found this particularly handy.
I have an allergy list, that I try to keep with me. But several times I’ve given it to restaurants and forgotten to print another one off when I’ve got home. With having my allergy list stored on my Medsmart App, I always have access to my allergy and intolerances. This means, I don’t have to pull up my blog and show people my My food allergies page. With the Medsmart App, I have everything in one place and easily accessible!
If I were being particularly picky, I’d love to be able to choose the order that my allergies appear – with ingredients that cause anaphylaxis at the top. This would help to make sure the things I’m most allergic don’t get missed amongst my rather long list! I’ve tried to put my allergens on to the app in different orders, to see if this makes a difference. But the Medsmart app seems to randomly decide what it’s going to put at the top.
Not only can you track and receive reminders for your medication and keep a list of allergies, the Medsmart App also has a number of other features. You can track your mood using the Medsmart App, selecting from one of three pre-set mood options that appear at the top of the home screen. You can also send the information in your medicine cabinet to yourself or others via email – great for providing medical professionals or other care givers (e.g. your child’s Brownie leader) with information they need. Plus, the Medsmart App contains videos with information on how the medication added to your Medicine Cabinet work.
As well as being able to track your own medication and allergies, the App has the option to create multiple profiles – perfect for parents who have to manage multiple children’s conditions and possibly their own too.
So if you’re looking for a medication reminder app, I’d highly recommend checking the Medsmart App out! It’s free to download and available on IOS from the App store and Android from the Google Play. You can find out more about the Medsmart App on talkingmedicines.com.
Have you tried the Medsmart App? How have you found it?
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