How to Remember Medication at the Right Time With a Text Reminder

Taking a pill is the easiest thing in the world and remembering to is one of the hardest. The World Health Organization's review of the evidence put adherence to long-term treatment at around 50% in developed countries, and found that simply forgetting was among the most common reasons (WHO, Adherence to Long-Term Therapies, 2003). Half. For medication people chose to take and often pay for.

The problem is not motivation. It is that the moment to take a dose has nothing attached to it. A text that arrives at that moment attaches something.

The setup

1. Write down each medication and the time it should be taken. If the prescription says "twice daily", pick two fixed times you can hold to, such as 8am and 8pm, rather than "morning and evening".

2. Set one reminder per dose time, in plain words, naming the medication. Not "take pills" but "take the blood pressure tablet", because when the text arrives you should not have to think.

3. Put the medication where you will be at that time. Breakfast pills by the kettle, not in the bathroom.

4. When the reminder arrives and you cannot take the dose yet, snooze it rather than dismissing it. A dismissed reminder is a missed dose; a snoozed one comes back.

5. Keep the same times on weekends and when travelling. Changing the time changes the cue, and the cue is the whole system.

Where the text reminder fits

Reminder Textapp is step two and step four. Text Hi to its number, then text each dose as a sentence: "take the blood pressure tablet every day at 8am", "metformin with dinner at 7pm every day", "allergy pill every morning at 7". It confirms in one line and texts you at that time, every day, in the words you used.

If a dose comes at an awkward moment, ask to be reminded again in twenty minutes or in an hour and it will. If a time changes, tell it the new time and it moves. Ask what reminders are set and it lists them, which is also a useful thing to show a doctor or a pharmacist who asks what you are taking and when.

If you look after someone else's medication, the same setup works for their doses on your phone.

Making it stick

Two details separate the reminders that get acted on from the ones that get ignored. First, the reminder should arrive at the moment of the action, not before it; a text at 8am for an 8am dose beats a text at 7:45 you promise to remember. Second, when you take the dose, do it then and there, before the reply, before the coffee. The reminder has done its job the moment the pill is swallowed. If several medications fall at the same time, one reminder that names all of them is easier to act on than three separate texts.

Reminder Textapp is a reminder service, not a medical one. It does not know what you are taking beyond the words you used, does not give dosing advice, and is not a substitute for the instructions on the label or from your pharmacist. What it does is remove the one failure that the evidence says matters most: forgetting.

Try it by text

Text Hi to (720) 315-7147 to start Reminder Textapp. It works on any phone that can text, with no app to install and no account to create. Text each dose as a plain sentence with a time, and it texts you every day when it is time.

Your first 20 messages are free. After that, one $9.99 a month subscription covers every Textapp. Text STOP at any time to end it.