As if breaking your foot or ankle wasn’t already painful enough, having to hobble around on a pair of crutches for weeks just adds insult to injury, literally. Unless you manage to get your hands on one of these Freedom Legs from Forward Mobility. Made from lightweight composite materials it allows you to walk on your injured leg by off-loading the weight to your thigh. There’s no pressure on your injured foot or ankle like when using crutches, but the Freedom Leg lets you stay mobile without tying up your hands and arms and it keeps the injured leg in use during the recovery period, reducing the atrophe of the leg muscles.

[ Freedom Leg ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

It’s widely believed that playing music for your baby while it’s still in the womb will help improve their visual, auditory, language and motor development skills when they’re born. And that’s what inspired the creation of the Lullabelly. It’s a large belt that can be worn over clothes, or directly against the belly, which features a built-in speaker that can be connected to an MP3 player making it easier to play music directly at your baby. There’s a volume control dial so things don’t get too loud as well as a pocket for holding your player, and the whole thing is machine washable, after you take out the easy-to-remove speaker of course. It’s available in 3 different fabric patterns (pink, green or blue polka dots) directly from the Lullabelly website for $55.

[ Lullabelly Prenatal Music Belt ] VIA [ Chip Chick ]

By David Ponce

Chemotherapy is relatively effective at treating cancer. But because its effects are indiscriminate it’s also unfortunately pretty good at damaging the patient in the process. It’s often a case of who’s more durable: the tumor or the patient. But with the recent FDA approval of the IsoFlow Isolation Catheter, all this could change. Developed over the last nine years by Robert Goldman, CEO of Vascular Designs (and inspired by the death of his own sister to the hands of the disease), the IsoFlow Catheter cuts blood flow to the tumor by inflating tiny balloons before and after the feeder vessel, then recirculating the blood through a different passage. Meanwhile, between the balloons, chemotherapy treatment can be infused directly into the tumor at a much higher dosage than could be possible otherwise. This provides for a more aggressive, targeted and hopefully effective treatment. Of course, this only applies in the case of tumors with a well defined shape and vasculature.

Goldman spent two years and about US$1.8 million developing the IsoFlow Catheter and with the recent FDA approval, the product is now available for purchase. We’re not sure how much, but if your life is on the line, it wouldn’t hurt to inquire.

Keep reading for more pictures, a video and links.

[ Product Page ] AND [ Goldman Interview ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

By David Ponce

Reminiscent of the anatomy of a Lego minifig we posted about a year ago, the above image is part of a series by artist Angela Moramarco called “Wii-habilitation”. We kind of prefer our own title to it since it’s more appropriately descriptive if a little less pun-esque. Our understanding however is that this could be part of an outreach by Nintendo to physical therapists, extolling the console’s benefits on the body, hence the “rahabilitation” theme. We’re not sure whether this is something actually sanctioned by Nintendo or merely a creation by Moramarco.

Click picture to enlarge and follow the links to the entire portfolio.

[ Angela Moramarco (at Coroflot) ] VIA [ LikeCool ]

By David Ponce

No, no, not really. Don’t sue us. But this arm brace really is kind of cool. First off it’s waterproof and attaches via Boa lacing. It’s also radiolucent, which is a fancy way of saying you can take X-rays of your broken bones without having to take it off. It comes in a bunch of fancy colors and finally, once the time comes to let your arm see the light of day again, the Boa lacing allows you to simply release a dial to loosen it.

Might not be the best idea to put it on a child for whom every button is an invitation for disaster, but for everyone else, living dangerously just got a little more inviting.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ BoingBoing Gadgets ]

By David Ponce

If there’s one thing that’s stayed quite analog during the digital revolution, it’s been the stethoscope. Not to miss an opportunity to reinvent the wheel, 3M and Zargis Medical have partnered to infuse some actually useful tech into the Littmann 3200 Bluetooth Stethoscope. The device will be able to communicate with nearby computers and offload any data it collects (through Bluetooth, natch), to be analyzed later with included software. They’ve also included what looks like active noise reduction, eliminating up to 85% background noise without eliminating critical body sounds.

Heck, there’s a whole bunch of features into this high-tech stethoscope, and you should keep reading to find out about all of them. Out here you get the more than reasonable price (considering how expensive regular stethoscopes already are): $379.

Proprietary Ambient Noise Reduction Technology (ANR)

Reduces background noise 85% on average without eliminating critical body sounds

13% better ANR than previous models

Acoustic Seal Eartips

Patented 3M™ Littmann® Snap Tight Soft-Sealing Eartips provides [sic] a comfortable fit and excellent seal

Creates a tight acoustic seal from ambient noise entering through eartip connections

State-of-the-Art Sound Sensor

Built to stringent specification

Sound experience equivalent to Littmann® cardiology-grade acoustic stethoscope

The sound received from the sensor is transmitted naturally to ears through the tubing

Frictional Noise Reduction Technology

Helps reduce handling noises compared to previous electronic models

Less distracting than previous models

Lets you focus on critical sounds

Up to 24X Sound Amplification

Extra listening power for when you need it

Helpful when a heart, lung or body sound is especially faint

May be useful for overly obese patients

May be helpful when the patient’s clothing restricts your listening experience

[ Product Page ] AND [ Press Release ] VIA [ MedGadget ] AND [ FayerWayer ]

We’re pretty sure that when we feel our skin start to sizzle and our heads become lighter from the humidity and ambient heat, that would be a pretty clear indication to get out of the sun. Still, if your very own biological sensors have disconnected from your brain, perhaps this item can give you a little guidance. Straight from (where else?) Japan, the Portable Heat Stroke meter keeps track of heat and humidity and will start beeping and blinking with varying degrees of alarm, as dictated by the Japan Weather Association. When not alerting you to imminent organic systems failure, it will also display both variables for you to entertain yourself with the information.

It’s ¥1,050, or about $11 and the site can take pre-orders until August 25 with shipping soon thereafter. We think. The page is in Japanese, so you can try to figure that out for yourselves.

[ Google Translate Product Page ] VIA [ Red Ferret ]

The next time you have a heart attack (that’s supposed to be a weekly occurrence right?) how would you like it if the person performing CPR on you was trained at home via a PC app using the Nintendo Wiimote? Well that’s exactly what biomedical engineering undergraduate students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham have in mind. And given the fact that the American Heart Association has pledged $50,000 to fund their research, the idea must have some merit.

The students have been working on the concept since last January, and this past Spring a working prototype of the technology was demonstrated which is when the AHA stepped in and offered the grant. If all goes well, the UAB Wii CPR software would be made available for download from the American Heart Association website as open source code as early as this Fall. And I think the Wii Vitality sensor which Nintendo introduced at E3 this year has finally found its killer life-saving application.

[ PR - UAB Students’ Nintendo Wii CPR Earns American Heart Association Support ] VIA [ Popular Science ]

By David Ponce

We’re about a week late reporting on this heart-wrenching video, but we thought you’d all still be interested in hearing about Gene Simpkins, a man afflicted with a rare condition called “Moto-Neural Demyelination”, otherwise known as Duke Nukem’s disease. Why the name? Sufferers go through life with an involuntary neural compulsion to act like they’re part of a first-person shooter game.

Sad. And it could happen to you.

VIA [ Kotaku ]

As the story goes, Paul Wessel noticed that his diabetic son Luke was always misplacing his blood glucose meter, though he never had any trouble finding his Game Boy. So Paul worked with pharmaceutical giant Bayer to develop the Didget which is a blood glucose meter that connects to the Nintendo DS and DS Lite systems. (It requires the slot 2 port so unfortunately it’s not DSi-friendly.)

It works like a standard blood glucose meter, you prick your finger and then insert the blood-soaked paper strip into the reader, but the test results are converted into reward points that kids can use to unlock new levels and items inside the Didget NDS game. The basic idea is to reward kids who regularly check their blood sugar levels which hopefully helps them develop good testing habits in the future.

According to the Didget website, the device will sell for about $50, though since it’s actually a UK-based site, there’s no word on if or when this will be available in North America.

[ Bayer Didget ] VIA [ Boing Boing ]