cardiology
Latest
Google redesigns Fit to get you moving
Sitting kills. Specifically, a sedentary lifestyle can kill you. Google and the American Heart Association want to save your life, or at least, encourage you to be more active. The tech giant is giving the Google Fit app its most serious overhaul since it launched in 2014, and the changes will apply to both the phone (iOS and Android) and Wear OS versions. The redesign focuses on movement and cardiovascular health, aiming to show people that it doesn't take a whole lot to meet scientifically determined weekly goals.
Your doctor may soon check your heart with a smartphone
The stethoscope, invented 200 years ago because a French doctor was too embarrassed to put his ear directly against a woman's chest, is finally getting a digital upgrade. A device called the Eko Core, which attaches to a regular stethoscope, has just been approved for medical use by the US FDA. It amplifies and records the sound signals transmitted by the ubiquitous medical devices, then sends the sound waves wirelessly to an iPhone app. From there, doctors can record the waveform and either listen to it later or compare it to a future visit to test the effects of a treatment. It will also be handy as a teaching too for medical students.
HealthPatch MD alerts your doctor about heart problems in real time
What's more important than your health? Not much, we think you'll agree. The team behind HealthPatch MD certainly knows our well-being is top of most of our lists -- so it made the aforementioned product to help monitor it. HealthPatch isn't a fitness-tracking wristband or a home health accessory; it's aimed at hospitals, doctors and medical services. What is it? It's a small patch with a module that monitors heart activity (ECG), heart rate (and variability), respiratory rate, skin temperature, activity posture and even fall detection. What makes it interesting is that it's also a connected device, so you no longer need to go to a medical facility to be monitored. You can just go about your normal life.
Daily iPad App: HeartPhys lets you peer into the complex workings of the heart
Unless you are a cardiologist, learning about how the heart works can be an daunting task. Words alone can't describe it and static images can't capture the complexity of how the heart functions. Medical students, heart patients or anyone with an interest in cardiology should look beyond paper textbooks and take a look at HeartPhys from Dr. Michael Parker. Dr. Parker is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and has a background in computer science. He brought those two skills together to create interactive medical books and web-based animations describing the heart, lungs and kidneys. The next logical step in making this material accessible to the public was to bring these multimedia elements to the iPad in the form of an educational app. HeartPhys was born out of desire to educate medical students, physicians and heart patients about the heart and how it works. The material is complex, but approachable due to the interactive animations that describe each concept. For example, heart catheterization patients can learn about their procedure by threading a catheter from the thigh into the heart to see the path it will travel, while medical students can study the depolarization and subsequent contraction of the heart muscles. Each interactive element includes a detailed explanation as well as lecture-style Show Me videos to help you understand some of these difficult cardiovascular topics. HeartPhys ships with 19 animations and more will be added over time. The UI looks great, even on the iPad mini and the explanations are overflowing with the science behind the heart. It's definitely geared towards medical students, nurses, and anyone with a strong background in medical science. HeartPhys is available for the iPad and costs US$4.99.
