R U Taking Ur Meds? Kids are great, but let’s face it: If a task
isn’t fun -- whatever it is -- they’ll probably forget to do it.
It’s not a big deal if they neglect to clean their room. But for
pediatric cancer patients, if they forget to take their
medicine, that’s something else altogether. Not sticking with
their complete chemotherapy regimen is one of the major reasons
children and teens with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, go
into relapse, according to researchers. But researchers have an
idea how to change that. They’ve combined new, modern tools with
an old-fashioned strategy to get children to take their
medication: They use both text messaging and the watchful eyes
of parents. A team led by Smita Bhatia, M.D., M.P.H., the Ruth
Ziegler Chair in Population Sciences and professor of population
sciences and pediatrics, is testing a parental-involvement
approach that uses text-message reminders and education to get
children to take their medication, and do it on time. “We can
quickly suppress cance