Text messages remind teens to take medicine

As the program develops, it could include appointment reminders and test results.

CINCINNATI (AP) — Calling all forgetful teenagers. More specifically, texting forgetful teens.

A Cincinnati hospital is trying out a program of sending cell phone text message reminders to teens with asthma to remind them to take medications on time.

“They just text me and tell me, ‘Hi. Don’t forget to take your asthma meds,’” said Tylor Thomas, 16, one of a handful of teens in a Children’s Hospital Medical Center pilot project to determine how well text-message reminders work to help teens manage their asthma.

He gets a reminder every day around 9 a.m.

If text messages are an effective solution for asthma management, there’s no reason they won’t work for patients with diabetes or other chronic illnesses, said Maria Britto, an adolescent medicine specialist who coordinates the project.

It isn’t just teenagers with chronic diseases who aren’t good about sticking to their treatment regimen. About half of all patients take their medicine when they’re supposed to, the way they’re supposed to, Britto said.

“The longer you have to take the medicine, the lower your adherence rate is,” Britto said. “If you have strep throat, the doctor gives you an antibiotic and tells you to take it for 10 days, and it’s not a big deal.

“But if it’s a medication you have to take every day for a long time and it has side effects you don’t like, you’re not going to take it every day.”

Among teens, sometimes not taking medicine is an attempt at independence. More often, they just forget.

“One of the barriers to adherence is the fact that many asthma medications really work over the long term, in that they prevent symptoms from happening,” said Dennis Drotar, a psychologist at Children’s Hospital. “But teenagers live in the short-term, so today and tomorrow are more important than not having an asthma attack six months from now.”

Thomas was diagnosed with asthma when he was about 3. His symptoms are pretty well controlled, but he uses an inhaler once a day to prevent asthma attacks.

Teens in the program can choose how often they want messages and what they want them to say. The mother of one of the teens does the texting, but the hospital plans to set up an automated system to send the messages.

For now, most texts are medication reminders. But as the system develops, it could include appointment reminders and test results.

“We could send out messages about other issues, like avoiding triggers or not going outside when there’s a smog alert or the pollen count’s too high,” Britto said. “Or if someone is trying to quit smoking or change another behavior, we could send out messages.”