Designing an OCR-Based Medication Support System With Drug–Drug Interaction Alerts for Elderly

Medication adherence and safety remain major healthcare challenges for elderly populations, particularly within Arabic-speaking communities. Managing multiple prescriptions (polypharmacy) often leads to medication errors, adverse drug interactions, and poor treatment outcomes. These risks are further intensified by language barriers, limited availability of Arabic medical resources, and low digital literacy among older adults. This paper presents an application designed to improve medication management for Arabic-speaking elderly users. The application employs Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scanning to identify medications, and potential drug–drug interactions in Arabic. The application has a personalized scheduling module that provides reminders for doses, refills, and missed medications. A formative usability evaluation involving task-based testing and semi-structured interviews with participants aged 50–80 revealed high task completion rates, positive perceptions of drug–drug interaction awareness, and strong intention to adopt the system. The findings highlight the value of integrating drug–drug interaction alerts into digital medication support systems and provide design insights for supporting medication management among elderly users.