WFAA -- This is how many of us keep track of how we, or someone we care for, takes pills. The pill organizer works to a point, but if I forget to look at where I have this pill box, then I forget altogether.
But a new technology can change all of this by placing a computer chip in your stomach! Sound too crazy? Ask Cypress Jackson about it. When she was 11 years old she got a new ticker because her heart was too enlarged. To keep her new heart going she has to take 30 pills...daily. If not...her body could reject her new heart.
And thanks to a tiny microchip, her parents and her doctors can keep track of her daily doses on their phones! Get this...it's a digital pill called Proteus.
“Every time they take their medication it has the pill in it,” explains nurse Kristin Anton, “and once it reaches the stomach, it sends a signal to this patch.” The patch then downloads the information that they've taken their medication.
And then that information gets sent to an app that notifies Jackson's doctors and her parents that she's good to go for the day.
“It is helpful because sometimes I get sidetracked and do stuff and then the alert comes and I'm like, ‘oh, I gotta take my pills I have to stop everything’,“ says Jackson.
The Proteus chip is safe for consumption. It's made out of silicon, copper, and magnesium--and just passes through the body. Liver and kidney transplant patients have been using it for a few years but this is he first pediatric operation in the country using the digital pill with heart transplant patients.
“It's pretty crazy that small little grain of sand could potentially tell us more information than we've ever known about our patients.”