CRI听力:Work Ingestible Technology

We can become forgetful about taking the odd tablet here and there, but some patients have serious conditions and taking the right multiples of pills at the required times before or after meals can be important to the effectiveness of their medication.

So a pill which can send the doctor messages about how their patients are consuming their drugs can be very helpful.

A group of doctors in the UK is now trying out an innovative new pill created by a biotechnology company in California.

The pill contains a minute sensor the size of a poppy seed. It's made of copper and magnesium, which are digestable, and a small bit of silicon.

When swallowed with prescription medicine, the metals react with the patient's stomach fluid and power the sensor. The sensor then sends a message to a patch on the abdomen, recording the time the medication was taken.

It uses wireless technology to send the data to a digital device belonging to a doctor, carer or even a family member.

General practitioner Dr. Peter Godbehere is among the doctors who have been using the pill:

"In medicine people quote figures of around 40% or more of treatments that we give out aren't taken according to how we prescribe them and that often gives us a clinical difficulty."

Godbehere says he is is using this technology as part of a trial for hypertension.

"If we had these sensors in all the regular medication, I know it seems a bit big brother, but we can be sure that people are taking products in the best way."

The technology is in the early stages of use in the UK but it is hoped it could save NHS England money through better-targeted treatment.

Doctors like Godbehere believe it may have potential for use with Alzheimer's patients and people with heart disease as they have to take pills everyday.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.