how to set a reminder
Apple has a new feature in iOS 16 that allows your iPhone to send you a reminder to take your medicine. In this tip you will learn everything about this feature and how to set it up.
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iOS 16: Medicines on your iPhone
With the new ‘Medications’ feature in your iPhone’s Health app, you can keep track of the medicines you are taking, your iPhone will remind you of the use and automatically receive a notification that there are two different medicines on your list that may be interfering with each other .
You can also see the possible side effects of your medication in the Health app. At the bottom of this article, we list all the benefits for you and why you really should load your medicines on your iPhone. But first tell iPhoned you how to do that exactly.
This is how you add your medication to the Health app
You don’t have to do that much to get all your medicines on your iPhone. Everything happens in the Health app itself. Read the step-by-step plan below to find out how to set the medication in this app.
- In your Health app, go to the ‘Data’ heading;
- Scroll down and tap on ‘Medications’;
- Tap ‘Add a drug’;
- Type in the name of your medication and tap ‘next’;
Soon you will also be able to take a photo of the packaging of your medication.
- Choose the form of your medicine;
The most common are ‘Capsule’, ‘Tablet’, ‘Liquid’ and ‘Local’. Scroll down to see even more shapes.
- Type the strength and the unit of the strength of your medicine;
You can find this on the box or leaflet of the medication.
- Choose your ‘Frequency’ of intake and the time;
This can be daily or weekly. There’s even an ‘as needed’ or ‘specific days of the week’ option. If you tap on the time after ‘Add a time’ you can also adjust it.
- Choose the appearance of your medicine under the heading ‘Choose the shape’;
This is especially useful for patients with dementia who would like to be reminded of what the medicine looks like.
- Choose the color;
This can be the color of your medicine, the color of the box or a color that is convenient for you.
- Voilà, your medicine has been added!
You will now receive a reminder every time you need to take the medication. If you want to change something, tap ‘Change’ in the top left.
Why you should keep your medicines on your iPhone
Have you followed the step-by-step plan? If you want to add more medicines, you can do this via the same steps. If you do that, your iPhone will automatically notify you if you have medicines that strengthen each other or weaken the effect of each other.
Your iPhone will notify you when it’s time to take one of the medications. Drag down the notification or press it when you see it on the home screen. You will then be given several options: ‘Capture all as taken’ or ‘Capture all as skipped’. This confirms whether you have taken your medicine. Are you busy? Then you can choose the third option to ‘be reminded in 10 minutes’. Every action you perform will save your iPhone.
What can the Health app do with your medication?
If you have forgotten an intake, you (or your caregiver) can easily read back whether the medicine has been taken or not. In the app you will also find all kinds of other settings for different special cases. For example, you can adjust a time of intake once or re-register an accidentally accepted reminder.
You can also print a PDF of all your medicines via your iPhone. This is useful if you are going on a trip and need to take it with you or if someone needs an overview. The app can even connect to the hospital! This way they know at once which medicines you are taking. That is very useful in an emergency.
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