At CES this week, Hocoma, a Swiss firm, is showing off its Valedo lower back exercise and therapy device. It sticks to the back of the spine and continuously detects the posture of its user. While other similar devices are already in existence, the Valedo can be used as a fun training system when paired with compatible tablets.
It’s used as a (Read more...)
Prima-Temp, a company out of Boulder, Colorado, will be showing off its brand new BLOOM body temperature fertility device at CES this week. The ring is self-inserted into the vagina from where core body temperature measurements are sent wirelessly to a paired smartphone.
The accompanying app is used to precisely track temperature trends that are co (Read more...)
If you’ve ever tried to take a sick baby’s temperature with a thermometer through their ear, you’ll understand how quickly it escalates into a difficult wrestling match, complete with screaming, kicking, and lots of “shhh, it’s alright”. Blue Spark Technologies, a Westlake, Ohio company that makes flexi (Read more...)
In the future, people with certain vision disorders and even healthy eyed folks will have access to electronic contact lenses that can improve and augment native vision. There are already advancements in that direction, but the challenge of being able to embed tiny electronic components into such a small space may be the biggest hurdle. Now researc (Read more...)
Just the other day we reported on new technology that corrects TV signals for colorblind people, and now we learn of new glasses that can make the entire world seem more colorful and vivid. The EnChroma Cx glasses from EnChroma, a Berkeley, California company, effectively provide high color contrast, producing an image in which the primary colors o (Read more...)
A number of eye conditions can be treated by administering drugs directly into the eye. Yet, conventional needles have a bunch of drawbacks, including the patients’ fear of needles entering such fragile parts of the body and the difficulty of accurately administering medication into a targeted region of the eye. For glaucoma, for example, eye (Read more...)
Researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Newcastle University have created a proof of concept artificial retina that may one day help treat a number of eye diseases, including age-related macular degeneration. The device is made of semiconductor nanorod-carbon nanotubes and doesn’t have a (Read more...)
Presbyopia, the inability to see things up close, affects large portions of the population as we grow older. Most people with the condition end up using reading glasses, putting them on and off as necessary, while some people keep them on throughout the day and end up looking like that English teacher from your childhood that would read famous poem (Read more...)
The FDA, finally, after three rejections, has given approval to pSivida‘s (Watertown, MA) ILUVIEN drug eluting eye implant for treating diabetic macular edema (DME). The device, about the length of, but much narrower than, a grain of rice (3.5 mm x 0.37 mm), is injected intravitreally using a syringe-like device. Once deployed, the device slo (Read more...)
Many people affected by certain types of glaucoma, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and some other diseases lose a great deal of their vision due to neuropathy rather than from damage to the optical components of the eye. The nerve rich areas that can be affected are either in the brain’s regions that deal with vision or within the neuron (Read more...)
Alcon is looking to make a splash in the soft contacts arena with their new Dailies Total 1 (DT1) Water Gradient Contact Lenses. I had a chance to speak with Dr. Carla Mack, Alcon’s Director of Professional and Clinical Support, about how material science is changing the playing field for contact lens technology and to try out the new lenses (Read more...)
Diagnosing and monitoring the development of glaucoma involves taking regular measurements of patients’ intraocular pressure (IOP). This is typically done in a clinical setting with readings taken weeks or months apart, a problem since the IOP can rise and fall unexpectedly throughout the day and may be subject to the white coat effect. (Read more...)
Measuring a person’s intraocular pressure (IOP) can help diagnose and monitor glaucoma, but just like blood pressure it varies and can be subject to the “white coat effect.” Continuous monitoring of IOP to detect spikes is practically impossible when using a traditional tonometer, but a new eye implant from Germany’s Impland (Read more...)
Vittamed out of Carlisle, MA received European CE Mark approval for its non-invasive intracranial pressure meter and non-invasive cerebrovascular autoregulation monitor. The Vittamed 205 intracranial pressure monitor works by applying pressure to the tissue surrounding the eye using a special pressure cuff. A Doppler ultrasound transducer plac (Read more...)
After cataract surgery a troubling number of patients develop posterior capsule opacity, also known as a “secondary cataract,” whereby a cloudy membrane develops behind the newly implanted lens. Recognizing this condition normally requires expert analysis, and while automated systems exist that detect lens opacity, they are not looking (Read more...)
Autonomic neuropathy is a common complication arising from diabetes, causing side effects like gastroparesis, erectile dysfunction, and other conditions due to damaged autonomic nerves. Early detection of diabetic autonomic neuropathy can have substantial benefits to patients thanks to treatment commencing sooner than it does now. Now researc (Read more...)
There’s a good chance that you’re reading this text on your tablet or smartphone, holding the device a short distance from your eyes. Often you just glance at your phone to check the time or send a quick text message, and doing this hundreds of times a day can be pretty stressful on the eyes. To help people fight so called Digital Eye S (Read more...)
Back in January of this year, Google unveiled an electronic contact lens that it’s been secretly developing by its X research group. The device is capable of measuring glucose levels in the wearer’s tears, a technology that may one day replace finger pricks for millions of diabetics. Additionally, there are plans to embed LED (Read more...)
EIZO received FDA clearance and is releasing a new 58-inch 8 megapixel (3840 x 2160) LCD monitor for use in operating rooms, as well as a Large Monitor Manager that can receive video from different sources to display on the big screen. The high resolution combined with the large size of the screen allow multiple high-definition images and vide (Read more...)
At Medgadget we’re optimistic about the potential of IBM‘s Watson computer to improve clinical workflow and efficiency, which is why we were excited to learn about the first integration of Watson into an EMR. Modernizing Medicine has staked its claim in a relatively crowded EMR space by focusing on specialty-based medicin (Read more...)