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Flexible Vitals Sensors Made from Graphene Sensitized with Quantum Dots

September 16th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Materials

At the ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Catalonia, Spain, researchers have come up with a way to use graphene to make flexible photodetectors to measure heart rate, blood oxygen concentration, and breathing rate. Additionally, the technology can also be used to measure UV levels coming from the Sun and to communicate the measured data from the sensor to a device such as a smartphone. Today's wearable pulse oximeters and heart rate monitors can be pretty bulky, as is the case with smartwatches. The bigger problem is that...

Smart Phyjamas for Monitoring Physiological Signals at Night

September 16th, 2019 by Siavash Parkhideh

Cardiology

Researchers from University of Massachusetts at Amherst have developed a new smart pajama, dubbed Phyjama, that can track physiological signals during sleep. Their work demonstrates that the technology can reliably measure heart rate, breathing rate, and sleep position during the course of the night. One day, advances like this can be incorporated into regular sleepwear, which can be an additional source of biomedical data and may help track and monitor various health conditions. Currently, smart devices such as smart watches can be used to measure biomedical signals, such as heart...

GymCam Automatically Classifies, Counts Exercise Reps

September 13th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Sports Medicine

Smartwatches and dedicated wrist-based activity trackers have become popular over the past few years. They're decent at counting steps during walking and running, but they're not very good at tracking most athletic activities. At Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a camera-based system that simply watches people at the gym doing exercises and automatically classifies their activities and counts the repetitions. The computer vision software recognizes repetitive motions and assumes those are exercises being performed over and over. Different exercises look different and with a bit of training, the software...

Incredible Health - a Career Marketplace Helping Health Care Professionals Find and Do Their Best Work - Announces Nationwide Expansion

September 13th, 2019 by IncredibleHealth

GE Healthcare's Artificial Intelligence FDA Cleared to Help Spot Collapsed Lung

September 12th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Radiology

Admitted patients often have to wait a number of hours for a radiologist to review their chest X-ray, even though it may be marked as urgent or STAT. That's because way too many are marked as such in most clinics. Pneumothorax, or collapsed lung, can go unnoticed in the meantime, leading to a dangerous amount of time to wait while inside the hospital. GE Healthcare's Critical Care Suite automatically processes chest scans right on the X-ray machine and flags those where it detects potential signs of pneumothorax. The attending radiologist...

Multicolor Activated Fluorescent Dyes Thanks to Single Atom Replacement

September 12th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Materials

Fluorescent dyes have transformed biomedical science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008, for example, was given for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein, GFP. Ever since GFP became available, scientists have been working on improving fluorescent dyes to better study dynamic processes within biological tissues. Typically, ultraviolet light is used to activate such dyes, but this can be damaging to cells and even trigger them to behave in a certain way, potentially affecting experimental data. Moreover, many long-term experiments are not possible since the cells end up...

Robotic Hand Combines Amputee and Robotic Control for Assistive Solution

September 12th, 2019 by Conn Hastings

Rehab

Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed an intelligent robotic hand to assist amputees in daily tasks. The research team used existing robotic hardware, but developed a machine learning approach to provide better control for amputees, whereby the robotic arms can better anticipate user intentions, even down to individual finger movements. In a process called “shared control,” the intelligent arm can automatically control certain movements, such as grasping and manipulation, thus combining both robotic and user control for an improved user experience. Researchers around the world...

Prosthetic Leg with Neurofeedback Makes Walking Easier, Treats Phantom Pain

September 11th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Rehab

Today's prosthetic legs come in a variety of designs, but they lack the ability to give users a natural sense of themselves. They feel simply like man-made devices strapped to the stump, as tools and not as part of the body of whoever wears them. Researchers from ETH Zurich, University of Freiburg, University of Belgrade, and the companies SensArs and Össur, have combined their expertise in a variety of topics to give existing commercial prosthetic legs a sense of touch. SensArs, a Swiss firm, is behind an interface that can...

MRI Can Now See Molecular Content of Our Brains

September 11th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Radiology

As we age, the molecular composition of our brain changes. This is a natural process, but it can also be associated with the presence of disease. Currently, there's no practical way to study the molecular changes within living humans, and post-mortem studies are limited in the scientific information they can provide. Now, scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have managed to use quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (qMRI) to peer into the brain and evaluate its molecular composition. While qMRI is a powerful technique, its ability to study molecular content...

Ultrasound Otoscope to Help Diagnose Middle Ear Infections

September 10th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

ENT

At the heart of the revolutionary otoscope from U.S. company OtoNexus Medical Technologies is a unique CMUT chip from Fraunhofer IPMS based on ultrasound technology. Diagnosing infections of the middle ear is prone to a great deal of subjectivity. Antibiotics being the typical treatment option, way too many patients are treated who are actually not infected. This can result in the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a host of other problems. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Germany have developed a new ultrasound transducer that can...

New Way of Making Superhydrophobic Microchannels for Medical Devices

September 10th, 2019 by Medgadget Editors

Materials

At Purdue University, engineers have created a practical way of giving tubes, microchannels, and other hollow components superhydrophobic properties. The technique will improve existing medical devices and make new ones, particularly originating from the field of microfluidics, possible. Currently, there are a number of techniques to make a surface repel water so much that a water drop placed on it retains its spherical shape. These are impractical, for one reason or another, when trying to make superhydrophobic non-flat surfaces. “Our technology provides an innovative way of creating superhydrophobic, or non-water-resistant,...

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