By Josephine Minutillo

We often hear about design innovation when it comes to cars and furniture, but not so much when it comes to things that really have an impact on our well-being. Recent advances in technology have created a product that makes it impossible for us to forget to take our medication, while other products designed to keep us feeling good have gotten great new looks.

More than 3.5 billion prescriptions are written every year in the United States. Nearly $300 billion dollars in healthcare costs relating to unnecessary emergency room visits and other negative consequences would be saved annually if medication were taken as prescribed. The Vitality GlowCap is a network-connected pill bottle that uses light and sound to ensure medication is taken on schedule. Inside the GlowCap is a wireless chip that monitors when the bottle is opened. If the bottle is not opened again for the next pill, the cap flashes, plays a ring tone and even calls your home phone to remind you to take your medicine. An additional wireless reminder light plugs into a kitchen or bathroom outlet and pulses orange when it is time to take a pill.

“Our inspiration was to apply new technology to medication packaging,” says Vitality CEO David Rose. “Like Amazon’s Kindle, the idea was to make it so simple that people wouldn’t perceive it as high-tech.” And like the Kindle, patients using GlowCaps don’t need a Wi-Fi or broadband Internet connection. Last year, Vitality partnered with AT&T so that data is sent through a cellular network. GlowCaps has taken advantage of ubiquitous computing, networked services, low cost electronics, and free media distribution to improve prescription adherence by patients to 86% as compared to the 50% adherence average.

Major pharmaceutical companies have taken notice, and GlowCaps is currently being used for medications that treat HIV and Diabetes, and prevent transplant rejection. “The bottom line is it costs less when people take their medication as prescribed,” says Vitality President Joshua Wachman. “There’s double incentive for doctors and pharmaceutical companies to use our product.”

While for most people taking medication is a sure-fire path towards feeling better, others rely on less universally accepted methods to get their health back on track. One such approach involves the use of light. Ancient civilizations worshipped the sun’s healing powers, but today, phototherapy, or light therapy, is used to treat everything from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and non-seasonal psychiatric disorders to jaundice in infants and skin ailments such as psoriasis, vitiligo, and eczema. It’s also been known to improve blood circulation, alleviate symptoms of jet lag, accelerate wound healing, assist in pain management and even grow hair.

Phototherapy consists of exposure to daylight or to specific wavelengths of artificial light using special lamps. Until now, those lamps have, for the most part, looked better suited for use in a hospital room than inside your house. But as the practice of phototherapy becomes more widespread, mainstream designers are taking a shot at creating therapeutic lighting fixtures that can feel at home in your living room.

One such designer is Ville Kokkonen, Design Director of Artek, best known for its iconic Alvar Aalto furniture. The clean lines and minimal form of the new Bright Light table lamp he designed for the Finnish company is a subtle piece that would blend seamlessly on any breakfast table or office desk, but it has been certified as a bright light therapy lamp.

“The tools and equipment at clinics are extremely well-designed to operate flawlessly as they fulfill a particular function,” says Kokkonen. “Too often, objects for mundane everyday use have not been designed with the same consideration and thoroughness. My approach was to reduce the formally unnecessary and concentrate on achieving superior performance. The particular challenge here is that this lighting typology until now hasn’t really fit into any space.”

Bright Light’s Plexiglas® sheet diffuser and boxy frame, made from birch plywood and painted white, house two 36 watt TC bulbs whose temperature reaches up to 4000K. “The right material choices were part of the design process,” says Kokkonen. “But in the end, the aim to attain the best quality of light itself was so demanding that the final formal result had to include a frame that represents a brightly lit white surface that could visually play with a piece of furniture.” When not in use for therapeutic purposes, the dimmable fixture can be turned down and used as an ordinary table or low floor lamp.

Carsten Jörgensen also wanted his new air care product line for Serene House to fit in any space by blending into the background. The longtime Creative Director at Bodum had plenty of experience designing coffeemakers and teapots, but was new at creating objects aimed at improving our wellbeing. “Unlike kitchen wares, the products in this collection do not have a direct functional role,” says Jörgensen. His goal was to achieve an uncluttered, minimal aesthetic that would cross cultures and tastes and look good in homes, spas, hotel rooms and office spaces.

Serene House was recently launched to fulfill the increasing demand for fresh and healthy air to breathe, to counterbalance the stress and pollution of our fast paced urban environments. Combining scent and sound in visually appealing devices, the “scentilizers” as the company calls them, go beyond the scope of ordinary air humidifiers to act as non-medical nebulizers. Rather than administering medication, the mist cleans the air. According to Jörgensen, a small vibration mechanism atomizes water droplets on the unit, causing dust particles to drop to the floor.

With a selection of fragrances and essential oils, and built-in music players, the objects go a step further to address our emotional needs as well, though Jörgensen himself was skeptical at first about its effectiveness. “Three years ago before I started working on this project, I would never have thought to use a product like this,” he recalls. “Now I keep a small unit on my table. It helps me work more efficiently, especially when I’m up late. Western cultures have forgotten how important fragrance is, but in Ancient Rome, for instance, official buildings had their own scent. For me, the fragrance releases memories and lifts my mood.” Jörgensen and his team are currently developing similar units to go inside cars, where pollution is high, as well as more sophisticated ones for use in much larger spaces.

Kokkonen also hopes to continue what he has begun with Artek’s Bright Light. “There is so much development and fine tuning to be done with health-related products that have to address sensitive performance and behavior-related qualities.”