The Thinginess of Medications: Some Points of Observation From the Design Angle

A large number of healthcare studies are paying great attention to patients’ behaviour with medicines and to patient-related factors leading to successful or poor medication adherence. In spite of that, more diffused design-oriented perspectives grafted onto the medication-user relationship still deserve dedicated attention. Although medicines can be the first (and sometimes only) remedy a patient can rely on when at home, there is a relative inertia in designerly ways of conceiving medications as designed things. Along with being respectful of the sensitive side of dealing with the materia medica that alleviate ill health, this paper addresses some concerns about the pragmatic use of medications at home, in order to convert them into design concerns. To this end, it takes the form of a literature review that partly revisits consolidated studies conducted in the anthropology of pharmaceuticals.