Allen Pittinger-Dunham, 51, has been taking HIV medicines since 2003. A few years in, his viral counts started to creep up, and his doctor put him on a much more complicated regimen that required him to take ten pills a day. Cathy Benedetti, a 38-year-old nurse, faces a similar problem with her elderly parents, who live 1,000 miles away from her. Each of them takes at least 16 prescription drugs every day. "They were so overwhelmed," says Benedetti. "They had literally a box of bottles, and they said every night, 'I don't want to deal with pillboxes.'" The problem of medication overload is a big one. Some 32 million Americans-10% of the population-are on at least five different prescription drugs. A 2005 study found that half of all Americans on medications don't take them properly, adding $100 billion a year to U.S. health care costs.
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