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Saturday morning, twenty past nine. My phone rings. It's my mother-in-law, Joanna. She's seventy-three.

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Ease a love. I've just got a quick question. That pink tablet, the one for my blood pressure,

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I think I've taken it, but I took it yesterday as well, and now I can't tell whether it was twice,

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because yesterday I got up, and then I got up again. And there it is. Me. Two kids, still in my

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pyjamas, phone in one hand, coffee in the other. And I meant to work out whether to tell my mother-in-law,

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take the pink one, or don't, you might have already. Eight medicines a day, three different consultants.

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Not one of them knows what the others have prescribed.

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Hello, I'm Tomasz Szuster. I built the mojApteczka app, and what you've just heard is exactly what

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today's episode is about. Hi, Iza. Hi, Tomek. So, is there actually a fix for this? Because honestly,

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ringing my mother-in-law and going, Mum, please, go and check your dosette box. I've done that one.

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It doesn't work. There is, but before we get to it, one figure. There's a major study here in England,

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thousands of people, all 65 and over, and nearly one in two of them on five or more medicines a day.

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Every day. And here's the bit that stopped me. Twenty years earlier, it was about one in eight.

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It's quadrupled in a generation. So it's not just Joanna's had a run of bad luck.

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It's far more common than people think, right up until a phone call like that on a Saturday morning.

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And here's the catch. Most of what's out there is an alarm. Or a dosette box, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.

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Or the grown-up child ringing every four hours. And all three have the same flaw.

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They need the older person to remember they've got something to check.

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Well, quite. Mum, have you taken it? Because to answer yes or no,

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Mum first has to remember whether she took it in the first place.

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Exactly. Now, picture this. In Joanna's kitchen, on the wall next to the fridge, there's a tablet.

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On all the time. On charge. And on that tablet, her page in the mojApteczka app is open. All day.

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And Joanna, wandering past for her afternoon coffee, sees a progress bar.

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Two of four today. Four times a day. Eight in the morning, midday. Four in the afternoon, eight at night.

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Eight. Green dot. Midday. Green dot. Four. Grey. Not due yet. Eight at night. Grey.

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So she's not asking herself whether she's taken it. She sees that she has.

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Yes. And that's the whole trick. I don't believe in apps that turn an older person into a patient.

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I believe in apps that do the counting, so you don't have to.

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Hang on. Tomek, there's one thing that bothers me about this.

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Good question. Look, two things it is not.

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First, it's not surveillance, because Joanna's the first to see the colours.

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The tablet's on her wall, in her kitchen.

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She walks past first. She sees it first.

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If she misses the four o'clock dose, an hour later at five,

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that bar turns amber and shows the four o'clock's still due.

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No shouting, no phone ringing. The screen just changes colour.

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She sees it, and she decides for herself.

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And if she still doesn't take it?

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Three hours after the time, so at seven, if the dose was at four,

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the colour turns red, and it marks that dose as missed.

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In the app, it's now clear. That one's missed. Not late. Missed.

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An hour to amber. Three hours to red.

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Yes. And those aren't numbers I've plucked out of the air.

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They're the values written into the app.

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The same for every single user.

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An hour late is still just life.

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She nodded off in the chair, popped to the loo, got chatting to a neighbour.

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Three hours, though, is a fair bet that dose never happened.

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All right. And the second thing it's not?

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Second, it's not a stand-in for seeing the doctor.

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The tablet doesn't know whether Joanna's running a temperature.

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It doesn't know her sodium's low.

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It doesn't know the new tablet from the neurologist

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clashes with the old one from the cardiologist.

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Though, as it happens, the app does check for that.

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But that's another conversation.

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Another episode.

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The tablet's there to prop up her memory.

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Not to diagnose.

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Right. That does sound honest.

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Most apps do the opposite.

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They pretend they'll handle the lot.

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You're saying, I'll do this one thing well,

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and I'm not pretending to do the rest.

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Exactly.

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And one more thing.

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Because carers always ask this one.

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Me, as the daughter or the son,

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where do I come into it?

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Well, exactly.

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Because in this story,

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I don't live in the same flat as my mother-in-law.

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I'm a hundred-odd miles away.

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You open the mojApteczka app on your own phone,

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go to the Family tab,

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and you see the very same bar Joanna sees.

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A card with Joanna's name on it.

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The 2 of 4 bar.

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The times in colour.

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The status.

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Due at 4.

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Or missed.

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Or done.

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So, I'm not getting a text at midnight saying,

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Mum hasn't taken her pills.

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No.

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The app doesn't ring round for you.

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You open it.

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You see.

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You decide.

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If you spot an amber due at 4,

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you ring and say,

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Mum, have a look at the screen.

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The pink one's due.

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You don't drive all that way.

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You don't shout.

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You just ring,

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because you know there's something waiting there.

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It's a subtle difference,

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but it's a big one.

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I'm not some digital carer.

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I'm family.

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We're both looking at the same screen.

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That's exactly it.

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Right.

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The practical bit.

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What do I buy?

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Where do I hang it?

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What's it going to cost?

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And can I,

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a 35-year-old mum with two kids and a job,

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set it up in half an hour?

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The tablet.

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It needn't be anything new.

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An old iPad or a second-hand Android

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does the job perfectly well.

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Only three things really matter.

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It stays plugged in,

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the screen doesn't lock,

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and it hangs somewhere Joanna already looks every day.

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The kitchen.

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By the clock,

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by the calendar,

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somewhere the eye naturally goes.

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And how do you stop the screen going dark?

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Apple and Google both have a built-in setting for exactly that.

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You set it once and forget about it.

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The full step-by-step guide is in the episode description.

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There's a PDF.

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And if Joanna accidentally unplugs the tablet?

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That's the most common question, that one.

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The answer?

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Cable tucked behind the kitchen unit.

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Extension lead round the other side.

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And if she really wants to unplug it,

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well, that's not the app's problem anymore.

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All right.

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And the last one,

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because I know it's on someone's mind right now.

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Data protection.

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Data protection.

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Yes.

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Medical data on a tablet

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in an older person's home.

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Short version.

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Joanna's account is hers.

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You're not peering into her account.

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She invites you into her family medicine cabinet.

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That's the difference.

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The tablet's hers.

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The data's hers.

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And she decides who's on the other side.

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Right.

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So it's her tablet,

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her medicine cabinet,

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and I'm invited.

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Exactly.

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And that's the whole idea behind the sandwich generation.

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We don't take control.

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We share the view.

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By the way,

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everything we're talking about here

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really is a feature of the mojApteczka app.

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This isn't an advert,

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just so we're clear.

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If you're listening to this

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and there's someone in your family

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on five,

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six,

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eight medicines a day,

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do give the mojApteczka app a look.

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The app is free

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and works offline.

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You'll find the link

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in the episode description.

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And if you found this episode useful,

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do pass it on to someone

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who knows a Joanna

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or someone like her.

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One more thing before we go.

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This podcast is made with the help

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of artificial intelligence.

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I wrote the dialogue myself,

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but the voices you're hearing aren't ours.

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They're AI-generated synthetic voices.

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We're telling you this straight out

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because we think it should be the standard

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for any podcast made this way.

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Full details are in the show notes

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and in every episode description.

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Until next time.

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Until next time.