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2008
Conference Paper
Titel
Medication intake assessment
Abstract
Today, more than 430 million people worldwide are estimated to be suffering at any given time from mental disorders. Surprisingly, there is limited awareness that mental disorders are a major cause of lost healthy years of life. According to the World Health Organisation, Affective Disorders (depression and manicdepression or bipolar disorder), Schizophrenia and related conditions are among the top ten leading causes of disability worldwide. This evidence shows how important it is to respond to the growing global burden of mental illness. Europe is taking a leading role in this field with a number of initiatives aiming to improve the mental well-being and reduce the level of social exclusion and disability amongst the mentally ill. Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in our understanding of the biological, psychological and social determinants of mental illness and this has led to the development of many effective medicines. However, we also know that the quality of treatment delivery is of paramount importance. Prescribed medication becomes a truly effective intervention if it is coupled with efficient service delivery. In such circumstances patients have the opportunity to realize their potential and to become functioning and productive members of their communities. Key components of efficient service delivery are timely detection of non-adherence to medication and rapid response by mental health professionals to any signs of impeding relapse. In this paper, we are going to describe a home care application for medication adherence monitoring and assessment.
Author(s)