The unrealized potential of the medication monitor.

The medication monitor is a dispenser with a time recording system for determining when patients remove medication. It has demonstrated that nurses and physicians can estimate patient compliance with considerable accuracy. It could be used: (1) to assure that only patients actually ingesting medication are used to evaluate new drugs, (2) to study the factors that influence compliance and strategies to improve compliance, (3) to prevent escalation to more toxic drugs or expensive diagnostic procedures when failure to respond is due to poor compliance, (4) to supervise compliance when society has an overriding interest in therapeutic success, and (5) to monitor the effects of air pollution. Specially designed medication monitors could be used to provide the proper amount of compensatory medication when a patient forgets and to reduce the chance that a suicidal patient will impulsively take an overdose.