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Mightier is helping calm kids down through mobile games
Learning how to regulate your emotions is a fundamental skill, but it can be tough for kids, especially those with challenging behaviors, oppositional disorder, ADHD and autism. Mightier, by Neuromotion Labs, is a gaming platform that teaches kids a valuable set of emotion management skills using just a phone, an app and a heart rate monitor.
ICYMI: A soft robot sleeve to keep your heart going
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: A soft robotic device made by Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital researchers has been tested on pigs and so far, seems quite promising in treating heart disease. The robotic heart wraps around parts of existing tissue and helps squeeze, keeping the blood moving. But unlike other existing devices that are inserted into the heart, this just goes over the top. Its makers believe that will lead to better outcomes for patients that use it, since cycling blood through a medical device can lead to all kinds of complications, from infection to blood clots. No word yet on when they'll begin tests in humans.
Use Feverprints to better understand your body temperature
The Apple Health app will autonomously track your steps and other wellness data, sure, but Boston Children's Hospital wants its iOS app Feverprints to help you keep an eye on something else throughout the day: your temperature. What Feverprints hopes to achieve by using vast amounts of anonymized data is gaining a better idea of what the normal range of temperatures for a human is, at different times through the day. This could eventually lead to better care and diagnoses of fevers. Simply judging your readings against the standard 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit and calling it good doesn't quite cut it when that temperature isn't the baseline for everyone.
Surgeons practice on 3D-printed models for kids' operations
Surgeons at Boston Children's Hospital started using 3D-printed copies of patients' affected body parts to prepare for procedures last year. Now, that move has helped save the lives of four children aged two months to 16 years old who suffered from life-threatening blood vessel malformation in their brains. Their condition gave ride to distinctive anatomies that one of the hospital's neurosurgeon, Edward Smith, said were really tricky to operate on. So, the doctors used a combination of 3D printing and synthetic resins to conjure up copies of the kids' deformed vessels, along with nearby normal counterparts and surrounding brain anatomy. That gave them the chance to practice extensively beforehand and reduce possible complications on the operating table.
Researchers create video game that monitors heart rate to keep children's anger in check
Nintendo may have left its Vitality Sensor by the wayside, but researchers at Boston Children's Hospital are using heart rate monitoring in a video game to teach children with anger issues how to temper their emotions. Dubbed RAGE (Regulate and Gain Emotional) Control, the game tasks players with blasting hostile spaceships while keeping their heart rate from exceeding a predefined limit. If a gamer's pulse rises above the ceiling, they'll lose the ability to shoot until they can ease their pulse back down. A group of 18 kids who received standard treatments and played the game for five, 15-minute-long sessions had better control of their heart rate and lower anger levels than a group that only used traditional treatments. Currently, a controlled clinical trial of RAGE Control is underway and there are plans to take the concept a step further with toys and games suited for younger children. Look out below for the full press release or tap the second source link for the team's paper in the Journal of Adolescent Psychiatry. [Image credit: Thirteen of Clubs, Flickr]
