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Xbox and P5 glove modified to help stroke patients
Researchers at Rutgers University don't seem to have lost any of their homebrew skills, taking an Xbox and an Essential Reality P5 gaming glove to create a low-cost alternative to traditional virtual reality rehabilitation systems -- systems which can cost up to ten times as much. This project uses some custom-made software to deliver exercises designed to help stroke patients regain hand movement, with one "game" consisting of wiping "dirty pixels" off four vertical bars, while another asks the patient to make a fist fast enough to scare a butterfly off the screen. Of course, the system isn't quite up to snuff with the more expensive options -- it has poorer accuracy and no force feedback, for instance -- but the researchers say it could still be a boon to clinics that can't afford the pricier gear and could even potentially be further modified to allow for home-care with monitoring via an Internet connection.[Via BoingBoing]
Cambridge Consultants develop NFC diabetes management device
If near field communication (NFC) is good enough for handling your money, then surely it must be good enough for managing vital health information, no? At least that's what Cambridge Consultants is promising, recently unveiling an NFC-based concept device developed in conjunction with Philips that could potentially be used by people to manage diabetes. The system consists of a wireless glucometer and an insulin pump which interact with each other to determine the proper dose of insulin by simply waving the two devices near each other, working just as well underneath clothing. And while they've focused solely on diabetes thus far, the researchers say near field communications could potentially be applied to a wide range of medicinal applications, including pain relief, asthma and respiratory care, and gastric electrical stimulation therapy, among others.
Portable bone healing system gets FDA nod
Despite having an air of pseudo-science about it, ultrasonic bone stimulation is actually a legitimate non-invasive therapy that's been clinically proven to heal certain types of fractures; and now, thanks to a recent FDA approval, this technology once reserved for fancy hospitals and doctors offices will soon be available for accident-prone individuals to treat themselves right at home. Specifically, the agency just gave the thumbs up to Smith & Nephew's Exogen 4000+ Bone Healing System, which is a portable device designed to stimulate growth in specific fresh fractures along with older ones that have not responded to traditional treatments. Twenty minutes a day is all it takes for a patient to speed up the healing of new fractures by up to 38% or give themselves an 83% chance of successful recovery from those hard-to-heal injuries. Before this new device convinces you to change careers and go all Evel Knievel, though, keep in mind that it's no miracle cure -- in order to completely toss aside concern for your personal safety, you'll have to wait around for those bone-repairing inkjet printers that we've been promised.[Via MedGadget]
Migraine zapper stops headaches before they start
The BBC reports that a group of researchers lead by Dr. Yousef Mohammad of Ohio State University Medical Center have developed a device that can stop migraine pain at the first signs of a headache -- and, no, it doesn't work by clobbering someone over the head with it. The device, called the TMS, actually works by creating a short-lived electromagnetic field that interrupts the "aura phase" of a migraine before it leads to a serious headache. The researchers also say that they device can be effective in treating nausea, and noise and light sensitivity, but that further study is necessary before the device gets put into widespread use. Still, the early results look fairly encouraging, with 69% of the patients treated with the TMS reporting mild or no pain, compared to 48% of those in the placebo group. Stranger still, however, is the 2% of the control group who experienced exploding-headitis when using this device. Eh, go figure.
Virgin installing telemedicine systems in every plane
Air travel is about to get just a little bit safer -- though not in the anti-terrorist, heavy-handed security type of way -- thanks to Virgin Atlantic's impending fleet-wide rollout of a device that allows ground-based doctors to remotely diagnose passengers in medical distress. The airline has just announced a deal with Remote Diagnostic Technologies that will result in each of Virgin's planes being outfitted with the Tempus telemedicine system, which contains blood pressure and pulse monitors along with an integrated video cam, and transmits data down to medical personnel via the on-board telephone system. Flight crews will be trained to independently operate each of Tempus' individual instruments, but unlike the in-flight defibrillators that preceded this system, attendants will have the added benefit of live instructions from experts on the ground, if necessary. Virgin will employ the Tempus boxes until at least 2009, and claims that it would like to eventually see an industry-wide implementation, which RDT probably wouldn't mind too much either.[Via MedGadget]
Bluetooth SIG drafting Medical Device Profile
Your Bluetooth-enabled PC or handset will soon be able to do more than just stream audio and sync data, as the SIG responsible for the wireless protocol has announced a forthcoming profile that will enable pairing with health and fitness monitoring equipment. Although several proprietary monitoring solutions are already on the market, the so-called Medical Device Profile will allow third-party manufacturers to release hardware with guaranteed interoperability, which should help grow this nascent use of the technology. Scheduled for completion sometime during the first half of next year, the new profile will allow users to both track pertinent statistics on their Bluetooth devices and easily send that data to doctors, coaches, or trainers. Luckily for us heavy Bluetooth users, the profile will also be compatible with the upcoming Ultra Wideband (UWB) standard, meaning that the fitness-related bits traveling to our smartphone won't have to fight for bandwidth with the tethered GPS receiver and A2DP tunes we rock during our workouts.[Via MedGadget]
Robot surgeon performs world's first unassisted operation
We're sure that more than a few of our readers are keen on robots and interested in the latest developments in robotics, but how many of you would volunteer to be the guinea pig for the world's first unassisted heart surgery? Even though there were about a million doctors on hand to monitor Dr. Carlo Pappone's robosurgeon doing its detailed work on a 34-year-old Italian patient suffering from atrial fibrillation (heart flutters), we can't help but wonder if a juxtaposed "0" and "1" in the bot's code is all it would take to drive a scalpel somewhere that it isn't supposed to go. Luckily for the pioneering patient, the 50-minute surgery went off without a hitch, most likely due to the fact that the prototype bot has software containing data about some 10,000 real-world operations, and has already performed assisted procedures on at least 40 people. Pappone, who initiated and monitored the latest surgery from a computer in Boston while it was occurring in Milan, plans to release a commercial version of the unnamed robosurgeon later this month.[Via PhysOrg]
VELscope uses light to detect oral cancers
We're not too fond of trips to the dentist, for all the obvious reasons (plus the fact that we still can't get the image of Steve Martin as the sadistic tooth-ripper in "Little Shop of Horrors" out of our head). But if more tools like the VELscope come onto the market, we may just start checking in with the DDS more frequently. The device, developed by LED Dental in Vancouver, uses fluorescent light that hones in on tissues that glow when abnormal cells show up. That can give the dentist an edge in fighting cancers early on, before they progress too far. The device isn't on the market yet, but is expected to sell for about $5,000 when it's released. Now if they can just find a way to replace those drills with a similar tool, we're all set.
UC Berkeley's disease-detecting E-Nose
The last time we checked in on electronic nose technology, hospitals were using the still-boutique devices for very specialized institutional work such as monitoring nasty bacteria outbreaks. Recent breakthroughs by a company called Nanomix, however, could make E-Noses a standard tool in every patient examination room, with UC Berkeley researchers using the company's tech to design cheap devices that can "sniff out" disease-laden molecules in samples a person's breath. Nanomix's "Sensation" detection platform uses multiple, configurable carbon nanotube-based sensors to instantly provide a reading from a puff or air, although the exact diseases that the battery-powered devices will be programmed to detect have not been announced. We do know that the first application of this tech will probably be for carbon dioxide detection, allowing emergency personnel to immediately determine the efficacy of breathing tubes used to stabilize patients on board an ambulance.
