Horology: time measuring systems or devices – Combined with disparate device
Reexamination Certificate
2000-03-28
2003-05-06
Miska, Vit (Department: 2841)
Horology: time measuring systems or devices
Combined with disparate device
C368S082000, C368S070000, C368S239000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06560165
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to medical related alarm devices, and more particularly to devices for reminding a person to take medication or perform some other medical related activity.
2. Background Information
It is very common for a patient to take one or more medications during the course of a day. It may be important that the patient take a number of medications, and that they be taken at specified times in order to increase their effectiveness, or to eliminate reactions with other medications being taken. In the case of AIDS patients, it is essential that patients take a large number of drugs, at frequent intervals, at very precise times during the day for effective treatment in current medication regimens. The average person may have a hard time remembering to take any particular medication, and will have an even harder time when there are numerous medications and times for taking them. If a patient is distracted, busy, forgetful, or suffering memory deficiencies or attention deficits, it may become impossible for the patient to keep track of his medications and take them on schedule.
Another problem facing many patients is that they may find themselves in a situation where they require emergency medical assistance in their home or away from the hospital, and they may be unable to tell the emergency medical response personnel what medications they are taking, when they last took them, what the history of taking them for the day has been, or other important medical and personal information which the emergency medical response personnel need to know. This could happen if the person simply couldn't keep track of all the medications he had taken that day, it could also happen when a person was incapacitated by a diabetic coma, a stroke, a heart attack, an epileptic seizure, or other situations in which this information would prove important to personnel in the field.
There are numerous devices available which act as timers to remind a patient when to take a medication. These devices come in a variety of forms and with a variety of features, but none of them fully satisfy the needs of the patient. Some devices are in the form of a wristwatch, and medications and the times for taking them are entered in the wristwatch. Like any alarm wristwatch, at the indicated time for taking the medication, an alarm goes off. The patient may read on the watch what medication is to be taken, and he would then turn off the alarm. The prior art devices assume that when the alarm is turned off, the patient has taken the medication. For some of these alarm devices, that is the end of their functionality. Other alarm devices may record information about the patient, his medications, and the schedule for taking them. Sometimes this information is downloadable to a doctor's computer or a pharmacist's computer.
Medical alarm devices with reminders for taking medication can also take the form of containers which store medications, so that the container may be opened when the alarm goes off and the medication either dispensed to patients, or taken by the patient himself.
There are critical features which prior art alarm devices do not provide to the patient. Many bedside alarm clocks offer a feature which allows a user to press a “snooze” button, which turns the alarm off a few minutes, but comes back on again in 10 or 15 minutes to remind the user to get up. The concept of the “snooze” button is useful for a patient being reminded to take medication, because the medication alarm may go off while he is driving, and the patient would not be able to immediately stop and taken the medication. It would be useful for the patient to be able to turn the alarm off but be reminded at a later time to take the indicated medication. If a person has multiple medications to take, and they turn off the alarm for the first medication, and before they can take the first medication a reminder for a second medication comes up, they need to be able to turn the alarm off for the second medication also, and be reminded at a later time to take both the first and the second medication. If the patient is reminded for numerous medications, such as 8 or 10, he needs to be able to turn the alarm off, and also needs to be reminded at a later time to take those 8 or 10 medications.
Another feature which is lacking in prior art reminder devices is the feature of presenting to emergency medical response personnel important medical information about the patient, including the medications taken that day. Some prior art devices store this information, and it may be retrieved by interaction with a computer, such as at the doctor's office, but what is needed is a simple and fool proof display of information in the field to an emergency medical response person.
The information and displays described above present a problem for medical information appliances. Some of the information above can have many characters, such as 20, 30 or 40 characters. Digital display means for a device the size of a watch have a difficult time presenting 30 plus characters in a format which is visible to the user. The solution to this dilemma is using an array of pixels which has the capability of scrolling characters across the display so that a line of numerous characters are readable to the user.
Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide a medical information appliance in which medical events such as medications or other medical activities can be recorded, and times can be recorded for each medical event. It is a further object to remind a user when the time for performing a medical event arrives, and to provide a way for him to turn the alarm off but still be reminded to perform the activity at a later time.
It is a further object of the invention to provide the capability of reminding the patient of multiple medical events, allowing the patient to turn the alarm off on those events as they occur, and to be reminded later to perform the multiple medical events which had been earlier reminded.
It is a further object of the invention to provide the medical information appliance with the ability to display medical information and a history of medical events to an emergency rescue person in the field, without the use of supplemental equipment for downloading the information. It is another object of the invention to provide a scrolling display of information in a medical information appliance, so that a string of data can be displayed in a legible form.
Additional objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be set forth in part in the description as follows, and in part will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon examination of the following, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and attained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
These and other objects are attained by the medical information device of the appliance. The medical information device of the appliance includes a memory means for storing various kinds of information which the user enters. The information the user enters can be medical information or medical events. Medical information includes such things as blood type, doctor's name, patient's name, patient's age, conditions such as allergies or diabetes, and other information which would be useful for an emergency medical technician. Medical events are medical activities which take place at a certain time and for which the patient is reminded. Medical events can include taking medication at certain times, taking a blood pressure at certain times, eating food at certain times, calling the doctor at certain times, or any health related activity which is set to occur at certain times of the day so many times per day. Both medical information and medical events are entered into the medical information appliance by the user, without the need for extraneous d
Dykas Frank J.
Goodwin Jeanne-Marguerite
Miska Vit
Nipper Stephen M.
Shaver Robert L.
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