Project Background

Market Analysis by Kerri Rettig, Business and Technology Major, Graduating May 2007:

Everyday people living with disabilities and handicaps are trying to live their lives to the fullest potential. These potential customers could benefit from a product that allows them more freedom as well as a more normal lifestyle. Our product, an automated medication bottle opener, will allow our customers to keep some of their independence, which has been lost due to their disability or handicap. Target customers for the automated medication bottle opener include people with limited hand and arm strength as well as limited ability to hold. The following will describe our customer target and how our product can help alleviate some of their problems. Customers we are mainly targeting include elderly men and women that are non-compliant, men and women with osteoporosis and arthritis, and cerebral palsy patients.

Elderly men and women from the ages of fifty to over sixty are prescribed, on average, seventeen to twenty-four prescriptions per year. With the growing amount of baby boomers entering this particular age range, the greatest medical issue involving elderly people is rapidly growing as well. The rate of non-compliance with an elderly patient is on average fifty-five percent. This is the largest issue as of right now with the elderly since there are an estimated 78.2 million baby boomers as of July 1, 2005.

There are two significant reasons for non-compliance to be such an extreme problem medical and economical. An estimated 125,500 lives are lost each year due to non-compliance with drug treatment of elderly people. Patients are either not remembering to take medication or they are not able to open the packaging of the medication. When the elderly are not able to care for themselves, they could then be placed into a nursing home. The annual cost of these admissions is $31.3 billion dollars. If an admission to a nursing home is not an option or a necessity there could be an admittance to a hospital. Non-compliance results in 10% of admittances to hospitals at an annual rate of $15.1 billion dollars. At this rate, it is determined that by 2020 there are going to be direct medical costs, linked to non-compliance, valued at one trillion dollars.

Providing non-compliant elderly men and women, that do not possess, the strength, grip or power needed to open a medication bottle, with an automated medication bottle opener will change their lives forever as well as possibly saving their lives. Elderly that have the power to open their own medication will not have to be placed in a nursing home or have an assistant to aid them. Our product should lead to elderly people living a more independent lifestyle.

Forty-four million Americans are at risk of developing osteoporosis. Osteoporosis compromises bone strength as well as causes progressive bone loss. There are ten million cases of osteoporosis reported today; the breakdown is eight million women and two million men. Out of these ten million cases, fifty-five percent of those afflicted are fifty years of age and older. Women and men that develop osteoporosis are then more susceptible to fractures, especially in the hips, spine, and most importantly in our case the wrist. Osteoporosis is now responsible for more than 1.5 million fractures annually. Out of the 1.5 million treated 250,000 patients were treated for wrist fractures. The national care costs for treating osteoporosis fracture patients in 2002 was $18 billion dollars.

Osteoporosis is found in all races as well as in both men and women. The women that are the most effected are 20% of non Hispanic Caucasian and Asian women age fifty and older. Of these people, 52% are estimated to have low bone mass. Though the number is not as high as in women, 7% of non Hispanic Caucasian and Asian men are treated for osteoporosis. In this group of non Hispanic Caucasian and Asian men 35% are know to have low bone mass.

Arthritis is probably the most common of the disabilities which are considered for the product. Arthritis limits 42.7 million Americans everyday. Approximately 26 million American women are doctor diagnosed and approximately 17 million American men are doctor diagnosed with arthritis each year. Besides doctor diagnosed patients, there are 23 million people that live with chronic joint symptoms which have not at this time been diagnosed by a doctor. Arthritis can affect a person’s everyday activity such as walking, dressing, opening a product, and taking general care of yourself.

Arthritis and osteoporosis disable both men and women of all ages. Our medication bottle opener could eliminate the pain associated with opening medication. Also, opening bottles will be able to be done with ease instead of resulting in a struggle. When arthritis, as well as osteoporosis conditions, are severe even the bottles designed to open easily are not the easiest to open now there is an easy way to open with no pain associated.

Cerebral Palsy patients are affected by a group of disorders which control a person’s motor skills, muscle tone, and muscle movement. A cerebral palsy (CP) patient can develop two types of cerebral palsy spastic as well as athetoid. In the United States, it is estimated that over 765,000 children and adults are living with CP today. It is a lifelong disorder that could possibly result in muscle tightness, spasms, involuntary movement, and abnormal sensation. CP is not a curable disorder but with the correct education, therapy, and with practical technology, a patient’s quality of life can be greatly improved.

A patient with spastic cerebral palsy finds their joints and muscles to be stiff as well as having difficulty with movement. Spastic cerebral palsy is the more common of the two types. An approximate 80% of children are diagnosed with spastic CP along with adults with an average 57% of women averaging the age of forty-four and 42% of men. This specific type of CP can result in patients having stiff and/or jerky movements that can inhibit the ability to control certain muscle groups. The capability to hold objects as well as letting go of objects can become nearly impossible. This muscle control is caused because while your muscles normally work together in pairs, one muscle group contracts while the other relaxes to allow a desired movement. Living with spastic CP causes muscles to become active together resulting in blocks of desired movement. A muscle “tug-of-war” is the result of these blocks.

Spastic cerebral palsy can be mild, but in the worst case there are medications, surgery, therapy, and technology advancements which are able to help a patient to live a more normal lifestyle. Since there are no two patients that are affected by CP the same way, there must be individual programs developed for each and every case. In general, there is a large amount of physical disability that most patients will need a physical therapeutic program. Other common treatments would include the use of physical therapists, occupational therapists, and a speech language pathologist.

The second and most common type of cerebral palsy is Athetoid CP. The amount of patients diagnosed with athetoid cerebral palsy is 5-10%. Athetoid CPs low muscle tone and poor coordination is also described as ataxic cerebral palsy. With athetoid CP, patients experience inability to control and coordinate movement, as well as appearing unsteady and shaky. Athetoid CP can result in having many types of involuntary movements as well as always being in motion. The movements that are seen in patients are shaky type tremors similar to those seen in elderly people. The tremors experienced make it difficult to handle or hold small objects such as a pen. These types of reactions are caused from damage to the basal ganglia in the mid brain.

ging with any type of cerebral palsy can be difficult since the conditions you develop or were born with can worsen with age. Most research in treatment and therapy for CP is done with and for children. There has been limited research involving aging people with this particular disability. With age, CP patients could experience physical challenges such as increased spasticity, loss of strength, and decreased mobility.

An automated medication bottle opener would allow some degree of independence to a cerebral palsy patient. Since there are no specialized therapy programs or medical research that will allow more hand mobility and dexterity to aging CP patients, there must be products and service which will compensate for these limitations.

Our target market is including, but not limited to, the following customer types cerebral palsy patients, elderly people with history of non-compliance, men and women diagnosed with osteoporosis, and arthritis patients. A goal of the automated medication bottle opener is to not only provide a new service to customers, but to improve their quality of life. There should, as a result of our developing product, be less cases of non-compliance and less admittance to hospitals, nursing homes, and private care facilities. There is going to be less dependency on others to take care of a simple task.

Location choice for advertisement is a difficult task, for the fact that there is no one location to find all of our target customers. Our product is going to have to start from the ground and work up since we do not have an established market or customer base. An initial area to develop a target market with the highest volume of our existing target market is the retirement capital of the country, Florida. In the state of Florida, 17% of the population is 65 years of age or older, with is approximately 3 million people. Other possible choices for product advertisement could include medical foundations such as the Arthritis Foundation, United Cerebral Palsy, Osteoporosis and Breast Cancer Research Center. Each of theses sites provide information on how to help conditions and products to assist with everyday tasks.

An automated medication bottle opener has not yet been introduced to the market. Other products that perform similar services are not automated products. These particular products still require manual strength to open caps to bottles. A second type of product that is now being circulated is a bottle packaging with an easy release cap.

Comparable Products:

Even though these products essentially perform the same service to the customers, they all require strength and pressure that many of our target customers will not be able to apply.