Non-invasive detection of medication adherence using a digital smart necklace

Studies have revealed that non-adherence to prescribed medication can lead to hospital readmissions, clinical complications, and a host of other negative patient outcomes. Though many techniques have been proposed to improve patient adherence rates, they suffer from clear drawbacks such as high complexity, user burden, and low accuracy. In this paper, we propose a two step system for detecting user adherence to medication. First, force-sensitive resistors are used to determine when the pill bottle has been opened. Subsequently, medication ingestion is detected using a smart necklace equipped with a piezoelectric sensor. Evaluations confirm high accuracy of the proposed technique.