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Tag Archives: Medical

Cardiio Application Measures Heartbeat, No Contact Required

By David Ponce on 09/05/12 • Leave a comment!

Arthur C. Clarke once said that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” That’s certainly true of a mobile application that’s able to give you your heart rate simply by looking at you, with no physical contact required. No straps, nothing. Cardiio simply uses slight changes in your face’s reflectivity to calculate how fast your heart is beating. It seems the iPhone 4S’s camera is sensitive enough to detect the change in colour to the skin on your face related to an increase in blood flow, which occurs with every beat of your heart. It works with all skin tones and works best with an iPhone 4S, though other iDevices should still manage, albeit at a reduced performance.

It’s $5.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ CoolMaterial ]

Personal Energy Orb Makes You Cycle Before You Can Use Your PC

By Radu Iosif on 08/28/12 • Leave a comment!

Spending ungodly amounts of time in sitting in front of a PC is bad for you. Mkay? But yeah, you’re lazy, we get it, so as always technology comes to the rescue. Developed by two students at the University of Munich for a physical computing course, the Personal Energy Orb is an Arduino-based device that keeps track of how much you’ve cycled, and rewards your efforts by letting you use your computer properly. An LED-filled orb is attached to your handlebars, while a revolution counter keeps track of distance traveled. The more you pedal, the more the orb shifts to green. Come back home with a fully green orb and you can use your PC normally. A red orb on the other hand means that Windows will set the mouse sensitivity to its lowest setting, annoying the heck out of you until you decide to either throw the whole thing in the garbage, or actually go outside for some activity.

Considering it’s a school project, the two students were happy to see that it did in fact work, though it wasn’t without its occasional hiccups, mostly battery related. As for commercialization, there doesn’t seem to be any clears plans for that.

PEO – Personal Energy Orb from Janko Hofmann on Vimeo.

[ Project Page ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Therapik Device Takes The Sting Out Of Bug Bites

By David Ponce on 08/21/12 • Leave a comment!

Even though summer is drawing to an end, there are parts of the world where that doesn’t matter and the bugs bite, and bite like they just don’t care. And while there’s a bunch of lotions and creams you can rub on the stinging bites, we think it’s better to use a device that has actual FDA approval. The Therapik pictured above features a heating tip that dissolves the bug venom through the use of, well, heat. It seems venom is thermolabile, which means that within a certain temperature range, it simply melts away. Apply the Therapik to your bite for 30 seconds to a minute (it gets pretty hard to hold it in place any longer) and if it didn’t work at first, apply again until it does. Gizmodo tried it, and loved it. It gets rid of the itch as well as some of the swelling.

It’s $13 and the website looks like one of those scam websites, but we’re told this actually works.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

You Can Now Zap Your Armpit Sweat Glands Away With A Microwave Gun

By David Ponce on 08/20/12 • Leave a comment!

Sweating is not only normal, it’s kind of necessary as it cools down your body when needed. But then there are those who suffer from hyperhydrosis and just. Sweat. Too. Much. Not even the industrial strength anti-perspirants do anything to stop the flow. So that’s when surgery comes in. A company called Miramar Labs Inc. in Sunnyvale, California, has a product called MiraDry that is basically a microwave gun that zaps your sweat glands and stops them from working. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration last year and became available in January. In two treatments, the device typically destroys 22,000 to 30,000 sweat glands and reduces sweat volume by an average of 82%. This costs $3,000 and the effects last for about a year. As you can imagine, the treatment isn’t covered by most insurance plans and will have to come out of pocket, whereas the more common Botox injections (for hyperdydrosis) cost $1,000 and are generally covered. It’s kind of hard to make a case for MiraDry given these financials, but if you’ve got a good reason to shy away from Botox altogether, you now have an alternative.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ DVice ]

FDA Approves Ingestible Sensor That’s Powered By Stomach Juices

By Hasmig Ourfalian on 08/03/12 • Leave a comment!

It’s called the Ingestion Event Marker (IEM), is made by Proteus Digital Health, Inc., has been available in Europe since 2011, and could turn out to be extremely helpful for people who have trouble remembering to take their medications. It’s a tiny sensor, the size of a grain of sand, which you ingest, either embedded in a pill or any other consumable. It’s then powered by the acid in your stomach and it communicates with the outside world through a patch that’s applied to the skin on your belly. It’s also excreted, you know, the normal way.

Not only can it tell you when or if you’ve taken your meds, it also transmits information about other physiological and behavioral metrics including heart rate, body position and activity. “Then the information can be sent to a mobile phone app to the patient, and, with the patient’s permission, their medical caregivers.” The idea is not to watch over patients and scream at them for not complying with their prescriptions, but to help doctors understand their habits and tailor dosages adequately. And well, maybe also scream a little. There’s no point in taking 70% of your antibiotics, dude. You’re just breeding for really strong bacteria that way.

There’s no word on cost.

[ CBS News ] VIA [ Geeky Gadgets ]

Panasonic Releases Digital Mirror For Physical Rehabilitation

By David Ponce on 07/19/12 • 3 Comments

By David Ponce

Remember in Mario Kart in single player mode, you were able to race against a ghost of yourself? The Digital Mirror from Panasonic is just like that, except not quite. It’s used in physical rehabilitation settings, where you have to relearn how to move parts of your body, and it uses a camera and monitor to help things along. First it’ll show you a video of an able bodied person doing the required movements, and will record you trying. You can later be shown your initial efforts and you can compare yourself and see your progress in real time.

It offers exercise programs such as “Stretch,” “Muscle Strength,” “Upper Limb’s Range of Motion” and “Balance.” Also, it is possible to select “upright position” or “sitting position,” depending on the state of the user.

Of course for something that will be used in a medical setting, the price will likely keep it out of people’s homes: approx US$35,412.

Panasonic will start accepting orders for the Digital Mirror starting July 20th.

[ Related Article ] VIA [ NewLaunches ]

Sensor-packed Smartphone Should Help You Stay Alive

By David Ponce on 07/10/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

We’re starting to enter an era where smartphones are moving beyond gaming and Internet browsing and are instead replacing (some would say displacing) technologies we used to travel great lengths and pay great prices to access. The LifeWatch V is an Android based smartphone that comes with an array of sensors that are able to tell you a number of things about the current status of your health:

The tests include one-lead ECG, body temperature, blood glucose, heart rate, blood oxygen saturation, body fat percentage and stress levels as expressed by heart rate variability. Each medical test is presented as an application and, in addition, there are diet applications and programmable reminders for medications. All collected data is automatically and securely saved to a remote server and can be retrieved from the cloud for follow-up anytime, anywhere. Results and historical data can be shared with doctors, family or others on the user’s request through e-mail or text message.

Maybe the only downside in this story is that the LifeWatch V will be using Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), a very outdated OS by now. Although we suppose that if the tradeoff is access to a health monitor that is also able to perform as a decent smartphone, we’ll find a way to deal with the geeky gripes. Unfortunately, pricing and availability haven’t been announced.

[ Product Page ] AND [ Press Release ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

Humidifiers Don’t Have to Look So Functional All The Time

By David Ponce on 04/09/12 • Leave a comment!


By David Ponce

The Japanese seem to have a thing for pretty humidifiers. It’s not the first time we’ve covered one, although this time we have a tiny bit more information on the product. The above is called the PlusMinusZero Humidifier Version 3, by Naoto Fukasawa design. It looks like a fancy bedpan, but will keep your nostrils hydrated and your sinuses free of pain instead. Coming in brown, red or green, this particular humidifier will break the bank at a cool $352. Of course when you’re serious about decking out your living space with unique looking things, money can quickly become the least of your worries.

[ Product Page ]

ITClamp Stops Bleeding, Looks More Painful Than The Wound It Seeks To Plug

By David Ponce on 04/06/12 • 2 Comments

By David Ponce

As was pointed out to us last time we discussed exsanguination, applying a tourniquet is not always the smartest thing to do. It should only be done when someone’s life is seriously at risk. And you should always be mindful that there’s a chance they could lose a limb is it’s kept on for too long. Of course, if you’re bleeding profusely from somewhere and don’t do something about it, you might die. Applying pressure to the wound is one solution, but the ITClamp goes about it slightly differently:

Inspired by a simple hair clip, Filips designed a device called the ITClamp. The ITClamp is essentially a sterile, plastic clamp approximately five centimeters in length, with curved needles along the “jaws” of the device. In a trauma situation, the responder clamps the device along the wound. The curved needles and the shape of the ITClamp draw the wound up into the device and anchor it with even pressure, allowing the blood underneath to create a clot around the wound and help stop the bleeding until the victim receives further medical attention.

Yeah so… the teeth basically bite into your flesh and then the clamp sucks it up and clamps it shut. Ouch! But hey, beats dying.

The company expects the product to sell for around $65 sometime in late 2012, pending regulatory approval.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ MedGadget ]

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