Heart pumps are electromechanical devices that have all kinds of limitations placed on them. One of those is that the pumps needs quite a bit of energy to augment blood output, so a power cable protruding through the skin has always been a necessity. This point of entry is prone to becoming infected, the patient […]
Author: Medgadged
Man Receives World’s First Wirelessly Powered Heart Pump
Heart pumps are electromechanical devices that have all kinds of limitations placed on them. One of those is that the pumps needs quite a bit of energy to augment blood output, so a power cable protruding through the skin has always been a necessity. This point of entry is prone to becoming infected, the patient […]
Low Stress Medical Education May Improve Outcomes
The word “surgery” generally means opening a person’s body to fix something inside. To medical students and residents, though, “surgery” conjures up a highly challenging and competitive bootcamp for overachievers. Considering the stakes, one may think that all the stress that a surgical resident goes through would be w (Read more...)
AdVance XP Male Sling System for Urinary Incontinence Now Available in U.S.
Boston Scientific is releasing in the U.S. its AdVance XP Male Sling System, a product designed to treat male stress urinary incontinence (SUI) via a minimally invasive procedure. Though it is only now becoming available in the United States, over 20,000 patients have already been treated with the AdVance XP around the world in the last e (Read more...)
Help Health Canada to Regulate Software as Medical Devices (SaMD)
Health Canada has written a guide for regulating software as medical devices (SaMD). They are now asking for input on their regulations by healthcare professionals, medical device developers, and interested public parties until March 29, 2019. This guidance comes at a great time, given how rapidly software is evolving today and how blurry the lines (Read more...)
QT Medical’s Personal Cardiac Assistant Lets Patients Conduct Comprehensive ECGs at Home
A variety of health trackers, including the Apple Watch, offer consumers the ability to record their ECG signals. Though the claims about these offerings are mostly accurate, they may be misleading to those that believe these devices mimic the capabilities of in-hospital ECGs. In reality, wrist-worn and other wearable ECG monitors are only single-l (Read more...)
OhmniLabs Uses Robots to Make Telepresence a Reality: Interview with CEO Thuc Vu
Anyone who has made a video call knows its limitations: holding up a phone or tablet is cumbersome, silences are awkward, and the interaction itself can be a bit artificial. OhmniLabs uses robots to transform simple video calls into “telepresence,” a more natural and immersive form of communication. The Santa Clara, California-based com (Read more...)
Innovative Pill Attaches to Stomach, Releases Insulin, Makes Diabetics Happy
Insulin injections are a reality for millions of people living with diabetes. Unlike many other drugs, insulin, being a protein, cannot be easily put into the form of a conventional pill. Inhaled insulin (afrezza) is an option that is appropriate for some patients, but it hasn’t caught on very well. A team of researchers from […]
Pipeline Flex Embolization Device Approved for Small and Medium Brain Aneurysms
Medtronic won FDA approval for its Pipeline Flex embolization device to be used on patients with small or medium wide-necked brain aneurysms anywhere between the petrous and the terminus of the internal carotid artery. Previously, the device was only indicated for individuals with large or giant wide-necked intracranial aneurysms. The Pipeline Flex (Read more...)
Heart Implant Measures Left Atrial Pressure to Monitor Heart Failure
Vectorious Medical Technologies, a company based in Israel, has announced that it has developed an unusual intra-cardiac monitoring device that has a built-in microchip but no battery. The V-LAP monitoring device allows patients to take measurements of the left atrial pressure at any time, which is done with the assistance of a small external (Read more...)
BrainRobotics Introduces a Modular Smart Prosthetic Hand: Seen at CES 2019
At CES 2019, a company called BrainRobotics was showing off what looked like a pretty impressive powered hand prostheses. It has individually movable fingers, which rely on eight separate EMG channels that sense remaining muscle movement for activation. Machine learning algorithms are supposedly in action within the device to regulate the hand&rsqu (Read more...)
Google’s Live Transcribe and Sound Amplifier to Make Communications Easier for Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Deaf people and others who have trouble hearing are constantly finding themselves in situations in which communicating with other fellow humans is a challenge. Gesturing and writing things down on paper is simple, but slow and frustrating. Google, a part of Alphabet, is hoping to change that with a couple new tools that will be […]
Digital Thermography and Machine Learning Team Up to Improve Burn Wound Care
A team at McGill University in Canada and the Universidad Autonoma de San Luis Potosi in Mexico have developed a system for analyzing thermographic scans of burn wounds to improve how they are analyzed and how patients are treated. The team used digital infrared thermography, a non-invasive imaging technique, to study wounds when they were pre (Read more...)
Toilet Seat Automatically Measures Host of Cardiac Parameters to Monitor Heart Health
Getting daily checks of one’s cardiovascular function requires cooperation and commitment on the part of the patient. Monitors have to be put on, the readings recorded, and then shared with physicians or caregivers. While electrocardiogram (ECG) monitors, blood pressure cuffs, and other technologies are readily available for at-home use, they (Read more...)
DowDuPont Releasing New Soft Skin Adhesive for Wearable Medical Devices
DowDuPont‘s Specialty Products Division is releasing a new soft skin adhesive, specifically designed for today’s wearable medical devices. The DOW CORNING MG 7-1020 Soft Skin Adhesive is a silicone-based product, which can be worn for extended periods of time while maintaining a tight grip and causing minimal irritation. Unlike devices (Read more...)
Miniaturized Inhaled Nitric Oxide Delivery Units for Use in a Doctor’s Office
Nu-Med Plus, a medtech firm based in Utah, has developed a range of smart delivery devices for inhaled nitric oxide delivery, including a miniaturized unit that can operate in a doctor’s office. The innovation has been possible as parts of the drug patent for nitric oxide have been invalidated, meaning that the cost of the […]
Tyto Care Brings the Doctor’s Visit to Home: Interview with Ophir Lotan
Tyto Care is an on-demand telehealth provider based in Israel that hopes to bring all aspects of a doctor’s visit to the home. Beyond the limits of traditional telemedicine, the platform also allows patients to conduct their own physical exam using a device that combines a camera, stethoscope, otoscope, thermometer, and tongue depressor. The (Read more...)
Pocket Sky Wearable For Seasonal Affective Disorder, Jetlag, and Shift Work Disorder
Active Wearables, a medtech startup based in Austria, has released Pocket Sky, a wearable designed to combat conditions resulting from time shifts and poor access to sunlight. The device can be worn like a pair of glasses and emits blue light to emulate sunlight, supposedly suppressing the production of melatonin. The company claims that the [&hell (Read more...)
TestCard, a $4 Urine Test Read by Your Smartphone
Recently announced as one of the Digital Trends’ Top Tech of CES 2019, TestCard is a UK-based company that allows users to turn their smartphones into a clinical-grade urinalysis kit. The process starts with a postcard-like card mailed directly to the consumer. The card costs about $4 and contains three fold-out urine test strips, each [&hell (Read more...)
Machine Learning Powered Wearable Soft Robot for Patients with Limited Hand Mobility
Researchers in South Korea have developed a wearable soft robotic device that assists patients with impaired hand mobility to grasp and release objects. The researchers devised a machine-learning algorithm to predict user intentions, which helps patients to use the device more intuitively. By receiving input from a camera mounted on the user’ (Read more...)