One of the things my grandma struggled with in her old years, was when – what – how to – and how much medication to take. There are many solutions out there that help the elderly with this burden, but none (outside of a person) that can offer a dialog and step-by-step assistance. As more and more accustom cell phone users enter old age, a phone based solution for medication assistance may become viable.

The medication assistant would be a fully autonomous application that would help elderly with their medication. It could:

• Scan the barcode of each pill jar, and automatically build a pill schedule and alerts based one the pills instructions.
• Provide images with accurate sizes and colors of each pill they need to take.
• Alert them of what they need to take, and how.
• Report that they took their medication to family and doctors.
• Provide answers to frequently asked questions, and a way of communicating with someone if they need more assistance.

The goal would be to create an application that’s simple to use, provides necessary alerts without crying wolf, requires minimal interaction to configure and use, and gives a person peace of mind and confidence that they are doing everything correctly.