A Jacksonville eighth-grader just may have made a scientific breakthrough that can help mankind. <\/p>\n
Patrick Shea of Our Saviour School in Jacksonville has come up with an idea to keep people from overdosing on over-the-counter medicine. <\/p>\n
Patrick, 14, received a first-place award for his project, Can Summoning a Pharmacist Reduce Over-the-Counter Drug Errors?, at the Illinois Junior Academy of Science Fair at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign earlier this month. The project was also named best in category among the 200 behavioral science projects. <\/p>\n
Patrick is the son of Tim and Lana Shea of Jacksonville. The science project involved putting an invisible watermark on over-the-counter medicine bottles. <\/p>\n
You would download an [application] called Digimarc, Patrick said. The app finds a watermark in the background of the medicine bottle label and then it links to a video on the Internet. On the video, I put Jacksonville pharmacist Chuck Savage holding the medicine bottle and explaining how to properly use the medicine. <\/p>\n
Patrick got the project idea when he was ill. It was then he discovered that the label on medicine he was about to take was difficult to read. <\/p>\n
Patrick had a fever and I could not read the dosage directions, his mother said. So I had to scan in the label and enlarge it on my computer monitor. I think thats what piqued his interest in discovering more about improving ways for consumers to take over-the-counter medicine. <\/p>\n
When Patrick began his research, he found that deaths caused by over-the-counter drugs exceeded the those attributed to illegal drugs. He spent about three months researching, producing the pharmacist video, giving a survey to fellow students and making a project board. <\/p>\n
The survey asked Our Saviours seventh- and eighth-grade students what medicine they would give to a 6-year-old child with a fever and a cough. <\/p>\n
The survey gave them three medicines to pick from, Patrick said. They were asked to choose what would be the correct medicine and dosage. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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\nOur Saviour student earns dose of science success<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"