BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0001]     Mature adults often experience difficulties when receiving elder care, typically due to various physical and mental illnesses. Today more than forty-seven million Americans are sixty years old or older. As the baby-boomers reach their retirement ages, it is expected that the population of those over sixty years old Americans will be doubled that of today. Unfortunately, a majority of them will require some form of elder care service either at homes or elder care centers. For those who have their parents in elder care centers, it is desirable that the parents are taking the daily dosage of prescription drugs. Often, those concerned have to make recurring phone calls to check up upon their parents or ill family members, often, when it is not convenient to do so. These and other disadvantages are solved or reduced using the invention.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0002]     An object of the invention is to provide a system for monitoring dispensed medication.  
         [0003]     Another object of the invention is to provide a system for dispensing medication and monitoring dispensed medication consumption.  
         [0004]     Yet another object of the invention is to provide a system for dispensing medication on a predetermined schedule and monitoring dispensed medication consumption.  
         [0005]     Still another object of the invention is to provide a system for dispensing medication on a predetermined schedule and monitoring dispensed medication consumption for reporting to predetermined recipients.  
         [0006]     A further object of the invention is to provide a system for dispensing medication on a predetermined schedule and monitoring dispensed medication consumption for reporting to predetermined recipients to alert the recipients when drugs have or have not been properly consumed.  
         [0007]     The present invention is directed to a drug dispensing and monitoring system for monitoring the care of patients. In addition, the system can alert the relatives of patients if the pills were not taken and/or some irregular activities were detected. The system includes an elder care unit that dispenses by predetermined drug dispensing schedule and monitors the drug dispensing means for determining when the patient actually removes the drug from the dispenser for indicating that the prescribed drugs have been properly dispensed and consumed by the patient. The monitoring system can report to relatives of the patient for remote reporting of drug dispensing and consumption. The system may relieve worries of the family members who have parents in elderly care centers, that is, whether or not their elderly parents are taking the required dosage of prescription drugs on a daily scheduled basis. The system can be applied to a wide range of drug dispensing and monitoring applications in elder care. The system provides elder care monitoring systems that can span various drug regimes, including pills, drinks, and injections without intruding upon the privacy of elder patients. These and other advantages will become more apparent from the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment.  
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0008]      FIG. 1  is block diagram of a health care monitoring network.  
         [0009]      FIG. 2  is block diagram of an automatic drug dispensing and monitoring system.  
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT  
       [0010]     An embodiment of the invention is described with reference to the figures using reference designations as shown in the figures. Referring to  FIG. 1 , a service provider  10  may include a web server and a database server  14  interconnected by a local area network  16  for communications typically through a router  18  and a firewall  20  to the internet  22 . The communications can be routed through another firewall  24  and router  26  to a first office client and a second office client  30  also interconnected by a local area network. The office clients  28  and  30  can be various user browsers for logging into the service provider for accessing information on the state of drug dispensing and usage. The internet  22  may also be connected through a third firewall  34  to a switching center  36 , such as a phone-switching center. The switching center  35  provides cellular and land line phone communications to other office clients, such as wireless clients  38  and office clients  40  and  42 , such as for phone communications to a users browser. The switching center  36  can also receive calls from an elder care center  44  for receiving messages and communicating dispensing schedules.  
         [0011]     Referring to  FIGS. 1 and 2 , and more particularly to  FIG. 2 , the elder care unit  44  may be a residence or eldercare site wherein is house a patient. The service provider  10  sends a predetermined drug-dispensing schedule to a personal computer  50  located in the elder care center through online internet connections. The computer  50  would preferably operate with a data frame formatter  52  communicating dispensing instructions to and driving a programmable timer and dispenser controller  54  for dispensing drugs through a dispenser  56 . An optical sensor  58  would monitor a drug receptacle for determining that the drugs were dispensed when driven and that drugs were subsequently removed, usually by patient&#39;s conduct. In the event that the drugs were not properly dispensed, such as when running out of supply, or in the event that the dispense drugs were not removed from the receptacle, the computer  50  can track the dispensing operation. The computer  50  can log dispensing and consuming actions as well as send reports to the service provider  10  or emergency reports to alert the patient&#39;s relatives at the clients  28 ,  30 ,  38 ,  40 , and  42 . In this manner, drug dispensing schedules and patient consumption can be remotely monitored to ensure timely consumption of drugs by elder care patients, with rapid reporting of the status of the drug consumption.  
         [0012]     As such, the telemedic systems monitors, logs, and services the interactive actions of prescription drug dispensers that are being accessed by a patient who has to take prescription drugs on a daily basis or predetermined schedule. The system is an automatic drug dispenser and monitoring systems in telemedic applications for improved care of elder care patients. The exemplar network architecture can support commercial deployments of several telemedic applications, of various type of drugs and methods of consumption. For example, the dispenser  56  can be hypodermic needles through which drugs are dispensed while a patients arm rests on the receptacle  60 . For another example, the dispenser can be a medical assay that pricks a limb resting on the receptacle  60  when the limb is in view and placed on the receptacle  60 , such that, the system dispenses drugs and assays. When assays are performed, the patient may rest a limb on the receptacle. The optical sensor  58  can be replaced with a pressure sensor to indicate that weight has been placed upon the receptacle indicating that the patient placed a limb at the correct time. Further still, the dispenser  56  could include medical sensors for obtaining assay information that is fed back to the computer through the controller in  54 . In this manner, a medical event is controlled and patient interaction is detected. In the general form of the invention, the eldercare unit  44  provides medical dispensing and patient sensing that can be directed to a wide variety of medical schedules events, such as, pills, solids, liquids, gases, and assays, for dispensing on a regular predetermined schedule.  
         [0013]     Typically, the system in the elder care unit  44  will automatically dispense a daily dosage of required prescription drugs at the preprogrammed time of day, and monitor the patient interactions with the dispensed drugs when the drugs are supposed to be taken. The monitored and sensed signals are converted in a digital frame format, and will be sent to the service provider  10  through the internet, where the data can are archived and relayed as desired. The archived data in the database  14  will be available to the clients with adequate security to protect the privacy of elder patients. The clients can access the database from their office, home, or mobile phones at anytime and anywhere. The service provider  10  can alert clients when there are no interactions in the systems that may indicate the drugs have not been taken. The clients, who received the alert, can then take an appropriate corrective action.  
         [0014]     The eldercare unit has the programmable timer and dispenser controller  54 , optical sensor  58 , frame formatter  52 , and computer  50  that all can be integrated as a stand alone unit, with the dispenser  56  and receptacle  60  being tailored to the type of medical event being monitored. The programmable timer and dispenser will control the release of drugs on a daily basis. For example, the amount of drugs to be discharged and time to release are programmed by the administrator who provides the elderly care services. The optical sensor monitors the drugs being removed by the elderly and sends status to the frame formatter. The frame formatter assembles data for driving the controller  54  and assembles data from the optical sensor  58 , for indicating whether the elderly patient took the drugs. Additional data, such as, the time of day, is used to indicate when the drugs were released and when the drugs are consumed. The frame formatter can then append information for communication to the service provider  10 .  
         [0015]     A link layer for the systems is used to complete a protocol stack for internet communications. The communicated data can be fashioned for various needs. For example, the data can include type of dispensing, such as, pills, liquid, solid, gas, assays, the type of consumption, such as oral consumption or skin puncturing. The data would also include the time of dispensing and the time of consumption. The computer can read the frame formatter  52  to obtain the data and then sends the data to the service provider  10 . The service provider  10  archives and makes the data available so that the clients with correct authentication and accounts can access the data anytime and anywhere.  
         [0016]     The present invention is directed to an elder care center telemedic dispensing and monitoring system for dispensing medication and sensing consumption. Various types of medication can be used, such as pills, solids, liquids, gases, injections, and assays. Various types of sensors can be used, such as medication removal, limb pressure sensing, among others. Those skilled in the art can make enhancements, improvements, and modifications to the invention, and these enhancements, improvements, and modifications may nonetheless fall within the spirit and scope of the following claims.
A telemedic monitoring system dispenses medication on a prescribed schedule and monitors the dispensing device to determine when a patient, such as an elderly patient, has actually taken the medication from the dispensing device, and reports the same to a central system that can relay messages to relatives of the patient so that drug dispensing can be remotely monitored, and when the system detects an anomaly, an alert will be issued to the patient's relatives to resolve complications of elder care services.