Special receptacle or package – For ampule – capsule – pellet – or granule – With indicia or indicator
Reexamination Certificate
2002-02-06
2004-08-24
Walsh, Donald R. (Department: 3653)
Special receptacle or package
For ampule, capsule, pellet, or granule
With indicia or indicator
C206S538000, C221S002000, C222S047000, C222S485000, C141S242000, C141S247000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06779663
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to the field of medication pillboxes, and more particularly to a pillbox loader that reduces the likelihood of mistakes, provides ease of use, and is portable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the ensuing decades, the number of Americans aged sixty-five and older will double to nearly seventy million. The majority of these Americans will, at some time or another, be required to take multiple prescription medications and supplemental vitamins for sustained periods. As these people get older, their ability to timely, efficiently, conveniently, and safely ingest multiple types of multiple doses of medications and vitamins at multiple times will decrease substantially as a result of varying degrees of vision loss, memory loss and physical degeneration. In response to this reality, the use of medication and vitamin pillboxes and dispensers will increase dramatically. Unfortunately, most of these pillboxes and dispensers are inadequate in ensuring that the user can easily and accurately receive the proper medication and/or vitamin.
There are numerous types of medication pillboxes and dispensers, whose aims are to create an easier and more accurate method for organizing and dispensing medications for their users. A common deficiency in the prior art, however, is that the problem of accurately loading pills into a pillbox or dispenser has not been sufficiently addressed. Most pillboxes are designed without recognizing that a pillbox is normally loaded by the patient, without any assistance from a pharmacist, or a competent caregiver. Unfortunately, the probability of pill loading errors increases with the type and number of pills to be loaded and due to the age, and the physical and mental limitations of the patient who is loading the apparatus. If a pillbox or dispenser is incorrectly loaded, then the patient may fail to take the prescribed medicine on time, or may mistakenly ingest an incorrect dosage or a harmful combination of medicines. Naturally, serious and life threatening health consequences may result from such mistakes.
Due to the repetitive and tedious nature of the task involved in loading a pillbox or dispenser, it is difficult to avoid making a mistake. Loading problems and errors may even cause some patients to stop using their pillboxes. One or more of the following problems may cause mistakes to be made in loading pills into pillboxes or dispensers:
Visual Complexity: Too many pills in close proximity can confuse the patient, and pills of similar size, shape and color can add to the confusion.
Haste: Trying to load pills too quickly can cause mistakes.
Infirmities: Infirmities relating to poor vision, memory and coordination usually associated with older patients, may easily lead to mistakes.
Interruptions: A patient's concentration in performing a loading task accurately may be broken by interruptions, causing the patient to lose his or her place in a pill count or proper loading sequence.
These problems in loading pillboxes and dispensers have been partially addressed in the prior art with only limited success. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,693,371 (1987) to Malpass, U.S. Pat. No. 4,763,810 (1988) to Christiansen and U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,589 (1999) to Lim, describe pillboxes and dispensers that employ both an apparatus and a method which try to ensure the accurate loading of pills. The pillbox described by Malpass employs a series of dual compartments, located either under or besides the compartments to be loaded. A sample dose of each medication is loaded into one compartment of each pair. The sample dose is used as an example to show the user how to load the adjacent compartment. A major disadvantage of this apparatus is that it requires the sacrifice of a portion of each prescription to fill the sample compartments. Prescriptions may not always provide sufficient pills to fill the sample compartments and the cost of extra pills may be substantial. The need to provide sample compartments as well as pill compartments almost doubles the size of the pillbox, making the pillbox less convenient and more expensive to manufacture. The Malpass pillbox is limited to providing only one day of medication, since it allows only one medication type per compartment. Multiple pills in a compartment could overlay and obscure each other. Even if only pills of the same type are used, they could overlay and obscure each other, especially when pill size and quantity are large. The need to reload the pillbox each day increases the probability of making a loading error. It also makes setup and loading more time consuming, when compared to loading done on a weekly basis. Although only one type of medication is used per compartment, it is still relatively easy to accidentally drop pills into adjacent compartments. If these adjacent compartments contain pills of similar size, shape and color, the patient might not notice errors, and the invention does not provide any type of cross-checking method in order to detect any mistakes.
Christiansen proposes two methods for loading his dispenser. The first is the traditional method of loading the pills manually into compartments. No loading aides are provided, so success is dependent entirely on the skill of the loader. All of the deficiencies and problems described above would apply. The second method involves the use of a prepackaged bubble pack. The bubble pack is theoretically available at a pharmacy, either prepackaged by a drug manufacturer or loaded by a pharmacist. Its multiple compartments have a permanently closed top and a slide-open bottom. The pharmacist loads the package manually after first flipping it upside down. Again, no loading aides are provided and all the deficiencies and problems would apply. A patient would not be likely to try to load the bubble pack himself. It would be just as easy to manually load pills directly into the dispenser. Unless the patient is able to find a pharmaceutical company to prepackage his or her medications into the bubble pack, he will have to rely on the skill of a pharmacist, or his or her own skill, to manually load the dispenser. Christiansen uses no method or apparatus for detecting or correcting loading mistakes.
Lim's method of pill loading involves the use of circular color-coded templates that are matched to storage compartments located on a dispenser wheel. Before loading, the patient must apply one or more color-coded labels to each prescription vial. Each label must be marked to indicate the quantity of pills to be loaded into the matching color-coded compartments. The major deficiencies of this technique are: 1) proper color coding of templates and labels, marking of quantities on labels and the application of labels on prescription vials is complex and prone to error; 2) the only way to verify accuracy of the composite pill loading is to check the quantities on each label against the pills in each pill compartment, which is time consuming and also prone to error; 3) changes in number and/or timing of medications are difficult to accomplish; 4) considerable visual complexity can result when using this method, and patients having infirmities are likely to be significantly challenged by setting up and using this loading method; and 5) no adequate method or apparatus for detecting or correcting loading mistakes is provided, and checking color codes and quantities marked on pill vials against pills loaded into compartments can demand too much of the patient's memory to be viable in searching for and correcting mistakes.
The present invention overcomes the significant limitations in the prior art by providing a method and device which substantially improves the accuracy of a pill loading operation and the detection of pill loading mistakes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a pill loader system and method comprising a pillbox loader and a pillbox. The pillbox loader contains a latticework pattern of rows and columns of pillbox loader compartments. The rows of loader compartments correspond to
Hendrickson Jay P.
Schlak Daniel K
Walsh Donald R.
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