In my last post just a few days ago I noted that I hadn’t posted for many months before that.  I have been quite busy since January focusing on developing new Alexa Skills and helping several start-up companies build healthcare & non-healthcare applications with a voice component.  I wanted to take this opportunity to post an updated table with all my 21 Alexa Skills, their descriptions, and Quick Links to them in the Alexa App on an Echo/Alexa device user’s smartphone.  Just click on the link of any of the listed Skills to check it out.   In case you don’t use Alexa, I should explain what a Skill is.  Very simply, the term “Skill” is the name Amazon has given to the applications that work with their Echo & Alexa devices.

If I were to categorize my Skills, most of them would fall into one of the following three categories:

• Humor
• Organizational
• Health & Wellness

Let me mention a few of them:

In the Humor category, Our Little Secret, provides a comical peek into what you might be saying in your home.  In it, a fictional brother & sister with psychic abilities give Secrets and Deeper Thoughts.  All the responses are entirely fictitious, but it makes you wonder what you would hear if “walls could talk!”  While the Secrets are free, the user must pay a low, one-time fee to hear the Deeper Thoughts.  Another humorous Skill is Wine Jester in which Alexa gives comical reviews of any wine you may place before her.

An example of Organizational Skills is Your Expert Log which enables the user to log experts that they may have heard about in different professions, such as, physicians, handymen, and others for retrieval later. My Favs allows the user to log their favorite meals and restaurants to be retrieved randomly. Conference Contact Helper was created after I attended a recent conference to help track the contacts made at conferences and the associated to-do list items.

Most of my certified Skills fall into the category of Health & Wellness. These first two were developed to help us focus on the goodness in our world and help improve one’s psychological health.  Kindness Counts lets the user record kindnesses for which they are the doer, recipient, or witness.  Gratitude Log lets the user log three of their blessings at a time.  After they have logged several sets, they can ask Alexa to play three randomized blessings at a time.  Healthy Text Scheduler allows the user to schedule text messages about healthy eating to help them form healthier behaviors surrounding their nutritional behaviors.  Track My Dose was designed to help individuals manage as-needed medications, so they know when to take the next dose.  They can even schedule reminders at the time the next dose can be taken.  Finally, Symptom Helper helps the user organize the symptoms they wish to discuss with their healthcare provider before an upcoming visit.  They answer several questions posed by Alexa, and she organizes that information into a concise statement that can be entered into a custom list on their Alexa App that can be shared with the clinician.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob

Click the link below to go to a table of my Alexa Skills or click the Download button on the right to download its PDF file:

I want to talk a little about how to get the most out of your medications and save money in the process. 

1. It should come as no surprise that your medicines won’t work if you don’t take them properly.  Properly means routinely as they were prescribed without missing doses.  For antibiotics it is critical to take them all just as your doctor has prescribed.  Stopping when you start to feel better will leave the infection incompletely treated and likely to recur.  Since different infections usually require different antibiotics, the antibiotics you save with incomplete treatment may not be effective for your next infection.  There is nothing to be gained by not taking all the antibiotics prescribed.
2. Another point needs to be made in regard to taking medications that control certain conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, elevated cholesterol or asthma.  Your doctor will monitor your condition’s response to the medication he has prescribed.  If you do not take your medicine as prescribed, and do not let him know, he will assume the state of control of the condition is the result of the regimen he has prescribed.  So if your blood pressure is still high, he may either increase the dose of the current drug or prescribe another.  In either case, you will be paying more for the treatment and the proper dosage will be uncertain.  If you take the increased dosage as prescribed, it could lower your blood pressure too much.  Also, the increased dosage can make side effects more likely.
3. If your health plan has a mail order pharmacy benefit for your chronic medications you should check it out.  Usually you’ll get a discount, such as paying a two-month copay for a three-month supply.  However, check with local retailers that may have especially low prices for some of the more common medicines.
4. Another way to save money on your prescriptions is to ask your physician to prescribe generic medications whenever possible.  For most drugs where there is a generic available, it is just as effective as the brand name and much less expensive.
5.   First, of course, check with your doctor or pharmacist that they can be taken with meals.  Other people use an alarm set on their Smartphone as a reminder.  People who take several medications, often use a pill box with seven compartments that correspond to the days of the week to help them keep on track with their medications.
6. Another good policy is to use one pharmacy for all your medications so they can check more easily for drug interactions.  Many pharmacies have software built into their systems to screen for these potential problems.
7. If you are ever in an emergency situation and are unable to speak, the emergency personnel will check it and use it to guide your treatment.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob