San Francisco-based Tivic Health announced that the company has received CE Mark approval in Europe for ClearUP Sinus Pain Relief, a small handheld device that can temporarily relieve allergy-related sinus pain, pressure, and congestion. ClearUP is a small handheld device that delivers a proprietary microcurrent waveform that stimulates sinus nerve fibers under the skin to relieve pain […]
Tag: ENT
Aerin Medical Gets FDA Clearance for Nonsurgical Chronic Rhinitis Procedure
Aerin Medical, based in Austin, Texas, announced this week FDA clearance and US launch of the RhinAer Stylus, a device for nonsurgical treatment of chronic rhinitis. More than 30 million Americans suffer from nonallergic rhinitis, according to the company’s announcement. Symptoms can be disruptive, including runny nose, post-nasal drip, congestion, and chronic cough. Often, medications and […]
Onera Bioimpedance Patch to Detect Sleep Apnea
Onera Health, a company headquartered in Silicon Valley but with R&D offices in the Netherlands, has developed a bioimpedance patch, to be worn on the chest, that can detect sleep apnea. It has just been successfully trialed in 25 patients and the results show that it is about as accurate as automatic scoring using a […]
OrCam Camera and Hearing Buds Combo Intelligently Amplify Speech: CES 2020
For many people who have hearing problems it is noisy environments, such as busy restaurants, that are their main problem. Hearing aids help somewhat, but even the most advanced ones can’t amplify only single individuals that the user is talking to when there are other speakers nearby. At CES 2020 we ran into OrCam, an […]
Eargo Launches Neo HiFi Hearing Tech at CES 2020
Eargo was at CES 2020 this year showing off their novel hearing aid technology. Their devices sit in the ear in a unique way and are nearly invisible to those around. They launched a new product this year. Take a look:
Flashback:Destigmat…
TOMi Scope Finally Lets Doctors See Fluid in Middle Ear
The FDA has just cleared the first device that allows for imaging of fluid within the middle ear, even when there’s a substantial amount of wax. The TOMi Scope from PhotoniCare, a company based in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, relies on optical coherence tomography, an imaging technique that produces 3D representations of translucent tissues, to spot the […]
TULA System for Awake Ear Tube Placement FDA Approved
Ear infections are notoriously common in children, but the usual treatment is relatively straightforward. An incision is made in the ear drum (myringotomy) and tympanostomy tubes are placed to drain out the liquid that has built-up within. However, because children are involved, pain is a major limitation and it is very difficult to get the […]
Osia, a New Type of Implantable Hearing Solution by Cochlear, Secures FDA Clearance: Interview
Earlier this month, Cochlear received FDA clearance for the Osia 2 System, the first active osseointegrated steady-state implant (OSI). The Osia System represents a new type of bone conducting hearing solution that uses digital piezoelectric stimulation to transmit sound vibration directly to the inner ear. While present in other auditory equipment and some medical devices, […]
Flexible Sensor to Help Diagnose and Treat Swallowing Disorders
Swallowing disorders can be debilitating, even causing nutritional deficiencies in some patients. They can also be difficult to diagnose and require the use of expensive equipment that is only found in select hospitals. Exercises can help those that are diagnosed with certain conditions, but even those exercises require the use of costly devices. Researchers at […]
Neuromodulation for Tinnitus Relief: Interview with Neuromod Devices CEO Dr. Ross O’Neill
Our nervous system plays a central role in how we sense things in our environment, and modulating the signals that pass through our nerves can manipulate our brain in various ways. Neuromodulation is commonly used for pain relief and is being researched to help restore movement, sight, hearing, and cognitive function for those who are […]
Soft Auditory Brainstem Hearing Implants from Platinum Kirigami
People who have hearing loss because of inner ear damage or from a poorly functioning auditory nerve are not helped by cochlear and middle ear implants. Auditory brainstem implants (ABI), which bypass most of the hearing system and send signals directly to the auditory brainstem, are the best option for such patients. But currently these […]
Epica SeeFactorCT3 Multi-Modality System Wins FDA Clearance
Epica, a company based in San Clemente, California, won FDA clearance for its SeeFactorCT3 system that combines computed tomography (CT), fluoroscopy, and digitial radiography (DR) into a single device. It is intended for use in diagnostic, interventional, and intraoperative procedures mostly involving the head, neck, and extremities. As such, it is expected to be used […]
Galen Microsurgery System Eliminates Hand Tremor
Galen Robotics, a company based in Baltimore, Maryland, has been working on incorporating robotics and microsurgery. Microsurgery requires a steady hand and a great deal of patience, something that robots can be pretty good at. By creating an innovative interface between the surgeon’s hands and a specially designed robot, Galen’s technology can eliminate hand tremor […]
Ultrasound Otoscope to Help Diagnose Middle Ear Infections
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 […]
Optogenetic Brain System to Give Blind People Sight
While there has been a good deal of progress in designing ever more advanced visual prostheses, some of the more impressive existing devices try to take over the functionality of the eye by directly stimulating the optic nerve or even the visual cortex of the brain. While this is impressive in itself, researchers at SUNY […]
Streaming on Android Devices Now Available for Individuals with Hearing Loss
For people with hearing loss, use of a mobile or smartphone can be challenging and with limited options. While Bluetooth-connected hearing aids are available, these solutions impose a significant energy requirement that drains battery life. Most available Bluetooth hearing aids today do not allow users to have access to their mobile device for an entire […]
Automatic Artificial Intelligence System Learns to Diagnose Disease
Wearable health monitors, ubiquitous sensors, and the ability to collect and store huge amounts of data are creating challenges for researchers hoping to use artificial intelligence to identify diseases. While the gathered data can hold important clinical answers, finding those answers means that the data must be categorized and labeled. Now, researchers at MIT have […]
Motion Sickness Study to Mitigate Motion Sickness in Self-Driving Cars
Motion sickness is slated to become a more prominent problem once self-driving cars become a commonality. Interiors of vehicles are expected to be much different than those of today’s forward-facing cars, including blackout windows with TVs inside for playing video games and watching movies. Even those not prone to motion sickness may have trouble when […]
CAVA Device Spots Nystagmus to Diagnose Dizziness
Dizziness is a common condition but its underlying causes can be very difficult to diagnose. It is usually unpredictable and doesn’t last very long, so by the time a patient presents to the physician everything checks out as normal. Detecting nystagmus (uncontrolled eye movements) is a pretty reliable way of diagnosing peripheral vestibular disorders, but […]
First Cochlear Implants FDA Approved for Single-Sided Deafness Asymmetric Hearing Loss
MED-EL USA just announced that its SYNCHRONY and SYNCHRONY 2 cochlear implants received the first FDA approval for people with single-sided deafness (SSD) and those with asymmetric hearing loss (AHL). No other cochlear implants currently have such an indication, so this latest news is a big deal for millions of people suffering from SSD and […]