Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a little out of my league when it comes to medical technologies, but I think I’ve watched enough hospital dramas to understand why the PhysioGlove seems like a good idea. Typically, a patient being monitored by an ECG setup requires 10 different electrodes to be attached to predefined anatomical locations on their body. Knowing where to properly place the electrodes requires a lot of training, and the 10 different wires coming from each lead can become tangled, or just plain get in the way.

So an Evanston, Illinois-based company called Commwell has developed a special glove that the patient wears on their left hand and simply lays across their chest. Getting it positioned correctly apparently only takes minimal coaching by the medical staff, and the glove incorporates all 10 of the required electrodes with just a single cable for connecting to a monitoring device. Now I’m sure it’s not designed to serve as a long-term solution for ECGs, since a patient could accidentally move their arm whenever they fall asleep, but when setting up an ECG is a time-critical matter, I can see why the PhysioGlove might be advantageous.

[ Commwell PhysioGlove ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Amy Tenderich over at Diabetes Mine recently reviewed a unique scale specifically designed for those living with diabetes. Now there’s nothing particularly high-tech about the Insight Foot Care Scale besides an oversized and easy-to-read LCD display, but what makes it useful for diabetics is a unique illuminated mirroring system that makes checking the health of their feet a lot easier. Particularly for the elderly.

The scale can support and weigh persons up to 400 pounds, and includes something called ‘Cue Light Technology’ which reminds users to check their feet on a daily basis. According to the Insight website there are over 75,000 amputations every year in the US among diabetics, and half of them could have been avoided with proper foot care. So while the Foot Care Scale isn’t cheap at $99.99, it could definitely be considered one of those worthwhile splurges.

[ Insight Foot Care Scale ] VIA [ Diabetes Mine - Check Your Diabetic Feet - While Weighing In ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you don’t have time to use your local pharmacy’s blood pressure monitor, but would like to know just how close you are to blowing a gasket, the Panasonic EW-BU70 provides the same functionality in the comfort of your own home. The inflatable cuff can be easily adjusted by the wearer (you don’t need someone else’s help to tighten it) and is designed to be used on either arm. The unit also features an oversized LCD screen making it easy to read even for the elderly, and a new SD card slot allowing you to transfer data from up to 5 users to your PC (or your doctor’s PC) where it can be managed in your favorite spreadsheet application.

There’s no pricing info at this time, but the EW-BU70 should be available come March 1.

[ Panasonic EW-BU70 Personal Blood Pressure Monitor ] VIA [ Akihabara News ]

[Editor's Note: despite the claims in this article, OhGizmo does not condone smoking of any kind. As a matter of fact, we'd like to poll our audience on their knowledge of whether nicotine alone can be a health hazard or not. We're skeptical.]

By Evan Ackerman

This just in: smoking is good for you! E-Cig is an electronic cigarette that is able to duplicate the look, and in some cases the feel, of smoking. There’s a LED on the end, and a USB rechargeable vaporizer in the body. The bit where the filter would be is a disposable cartridge containing differing amounts of nicotine (if you’re trying to quit), or all kinds of other stuff like caffeine, flavorings, or even vitamins. The vaporizer turns the flavoring or whatever into steam when you inhale, and when you exhale it looks just like smoke.

The body is USB rechargeable, and will power through one and a half cartridges. Each cartridge is the equivalent of about a pack of regular cigarettes, and costs $5. The entire kit (including a pack of 4 cartridges) runs somewhere between $80 and $100.

[ E-Cig ]

By Andrew Liszewski

As if the health and physical problems weren’t enough, people with diabetes also have to deal with testing their blood sugar on a regular basis, which usually involves pricking a finger to get a blood sample. The SEVEN system from DexCom however uses a flexible, platinum wire-based device that goes under the skin to continually read glucose levels for a period of seven days. The sensor is currently the smallest on the market (about the size of a quarter) and it attaches to your skin via a waterproof adhesive patch so you can wear it non-stop for an entire week without any special care.

The sensor also features a wireless transmitter which sends information about your blood glucose level to a receiver every 5 minutes, providing a more comprehensive record of your sugar levels on an hourly basis. The SEVEN receiver, which is about the size of a cellphone, has a large LCD display which can be used to show graphs of your blood glucose level over 1, 3 and 9-hour periods. It also has a set of high and low blood glucose alerts that can be customized to your needs, and a Hypo-Safety-Alarm that will alert you when your glucose falls to 55 mg/dL or lower. Since the transmitter on the sensor runs on a minimal amount of power, the range between the sensor and the receiver is limited to about 5 feet, so you’ll always need to keep it on or near your person. But if you can get a prescription for it from your doctor, and it’s reasonably priced, it could be a far better alternative to pricking your finger every morning.

[ DexCom SEVEN System ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

By Andrew Liszewski

The idea of creating a bionic eye to assist people with seriously impaired vision is definitely exciting. But installing a silicon chip into a human eyeball to assist the retinas has some drawbacks, the least of which being that the chip itself can block light from falling on areas of the retina that are healthy and still working properly. So Jeffrey Olsen at the University of Colorado Hospital has come up with a different approach.

Instead of implanting a single large chip, he wants to inject quantum dots, or nanoscale sized pieces of semiconductor into the retina. They fluoresce when hit by photons and would actually serve to boost the image hitting the damaged retina, improving its ability to interpret the image. Not only do the quantum dots not require an external power source, but they’re extremely small and can actually be targeted towards specific areas of the retina that are damaged. So in other words, you can send help where it’s needed most. So far the technique has shown promise when tested on rats, and you can read the patent application on the WIPO website for more specifics.

[ WIPO - Method For Stimulating Retinal Response Using Photoactive Devices ] VIA [ New Scientist ]

By Andrew Liszewski

You can basically think of the Beforme as an iPod with a built-in stethoscope that would allow an expectant mother to hear and monitor both her and her child’s heartbeat. Not only does this increase the bond between mother and child-to-be, but it also allows her to listen and detect any irregularities before they become a serious problem. In fact, not only would the Beforme allow a mother to listen to the heartbeats and see them graphed on the LCD display, but special software would also provide a more accurate and medical-based analysis of the rhythms, alerting the mother to possible issues.

And while the Beforme only exists as concept renders at this point, the designer has been working with Robert Majkut Design to refine the concept to the point where they’re actually ready to create a working prototype. So one day you might actually see this device on store shelves.

[ Beforme - Robert Majkut Design ] VIA [ Yatzer ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Based on the name, I have to assume these electronic contact lens cases are either designed for a European nobleman having a rank that’s equal to a British Earl, or for people who have a hard time remembering how long it’s been since they’ve replaced their contacts. I’m inclined to believe it’s for the former, but most of the websites selling this thing seem to be targeting it towards the latter.

The Countact Lens Case features a simple blacklit LCD display which will show how many days your current set of contacts have been worn. It does require the user to remember to press a ‘counter’ button every time they change their contact lenses, but the lens case will do the rest by not only keep tracking of how long it’s been, but alerting you when it’s time to replace your lenses. And you can customize the ‘expiry’ date from anywhere between 14 to 30 days. They’re available from LatestBuy.com.au for $33.97 which actually gets you a pack of 4 since the built-in, non-replaceable battery powering the display is only good for about 3 months.

[ Countact Lens Cases ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Hallowe’en’s just around the corner and quite frankly there’s nothing more horrifying to me than old-timey medical instruments. So instead of watching any of those lame ‘horror’ movies on TV (except for Shaun Of The Dead) I suggest spending a couple of hours poking through the British Columbia Medical Association’s Medical Museum which is now online for your gawking pleasure.

The site is broken down into various sections, and while I still haven’t had the courage to look at the Dentistry page, some of the others aren’t so bad. For instance, the device pictured above is an aspirating set that dates back to the year 1900 and was used by Dr. R. Eden Walker G.P. in his New Westminster practice. Now I’m sure in another 100 years Andrew MK-IV will be hyper-blogging the same thing about the medical instruments we use today, but that doesn’t make the antique tools in this collection any less unsettling.

[ British Columbia Medical Association Medical Museum ] VIA [ Medgadget ]