Critical care facilities around the world are on the front lines of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Intubation is necessary to maintain many critical patients in the ICU, but too often obtaining an airway proves to be challenging. In some patients, intubation can take over a minute or more, potentially leading to serious consequences. Now, Nihon […]
Tag: Medicine
Vagus Nerve Stimulator Gets FDA Emergency OK for Asthmatics with COVID
People stricken with COVID-19 exhibit a wide range of symptoms. Some are barely affected while others suffer dire consequences. People with asthma are in particular danger, as SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus that can make breathing even more difficult. Now, the FDA has issued an Emergency Use Authorization for the gammaCore Sapphire CV non-invasive vagus […]
Nanogenerators Harvest Energy from Body, Monitor Heart Health
Wearable medical devices such as continuous heart rate monitors, insulin pumps, and neural stimulators usually need access to an electric power source in order to function. While there’s a great deal of wasted energy that our body emits that can be harvested to power such devices, making it actually happen using biocompatible materials has proven […]
Vitls Platform Cleared in U.S. for Remote Patient Monitoring
Vitls Inc., a company out of Houston, Texas, won FDA clearance for its Vitls Platform, a combination of a vitals monitoring patch, cloud storage, and an app that lets clinicians monitor multiple patients wearing such a patch at once. The patch, which is called Tégo, keeps track of a patient’s heart and respiration rates, heart […]
UV-C Enclosure to Disinfect Medical and Personal Protective Equipment
UV-Concepts, an Englewood, Colorado firm, is unveiling a new product that uses ultraviolet light to disinfect all kinds of portable medical equipment. The UV-C Enclosure (UVE) is a large reflective chamber inside of which anything from wheelchairs to mobile nurse computer stations can be disinfected within about a minute. The UVE relies on fluorescent tubes […]
Scientists 3D-Print Human Heart Pump
Scientists at the University of Minnesota have 3D printed a beating heart muscle ‘pump’ consisting of pluripotent stem cells and an extracellular matrix. The researchers grow the stem cells within the structure until they reach an appropriate cell density, and then differentiate them into cardiomyocytes. The 1.5 cm sized structure can pump fluids, and could […]
Patients to Draw Their Own Biomedical Sensors Using Pencil and Paper
Wearable bioelectronic devices that stick to the skin and measure things such as temperature, heart rhythms, and other vitals are typically complex devices that use modern materials to do their job. They tend to be difficult to manufacture, expensive, and fragile, and so are still not widely available. Incredibly, researchers at the University of Missouri […]
Thinklabs One Electronic Stethoscope Helps Physicians Stop Spread of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the implementation and use of telemedicine and telehealth platforms and devices as part of current day-to-day standards of care in many hospital and healthcare systems. In this era of social distancing, doctors on our frontlines are at the most risk when diagnosing patients, and it’s therefore important to minimize […]
Getinge Servo-air Multi-Purpose Mechanical Ventilator FDA Cleared
Getinge has won FDA clearance for its Servo-air mechanical ventilator. The device doesn’t need any wall gas or pressurized gas cylinders to operate thanks to a built-in turbine that generates enough continuous air pressure to meet any patient’s needs. Using powerful hot-swappable batteries allows the Servo-air to maintain patients while in transport between hospital wards. […]
Micro-LEDs and Solar Panels Wirelessly Power Medical Implants
Researchers at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have developed a method to wirelessly power implanted devices using light. The technique involves a micro-LED patch to transmit light through the skin and a photovoltaic system on implanted devices that can turn this light into electricity. This technology could help researchers to […]
ivWatch Monitors IV Placement Sites for Leakage, Now Cleared by FDA
ivWatch, a company based in Newport News, Virginia, won FDA clearance for its SmartTouch sensor that detects peripheral IV infiltration and extravasation events. Though somewhat rare, these can be difficult to notice and a late response can lead to grave consequences. The SmartTouch sensor can warn physicians that something is wrong, sometimes hours before a […]
Revolutionizing IV Access With TournIQ: Interview With Jonathan Ilicki, Co-Founder of Ortrud Medical
IV access is one of the most common clinical procedures in healthcare, with over 300 million hospitalized patients in the United States receiving a peripheral venous catheter every year. However, as many have painfully experienced, catheter insertion isn’t always successful on the first attempt. Often times, we place the blame on dehydration, our deep veins, […]
Bridge, The Opioid Withdrawal Therapy Device, Released by Masimo
Masimo has announced that it’s making the Bridge device available, the first electronic therapeutic solution for tackling opioid withdrawals. Originally developed by Innovative Health Solutions, a Versailles, Indiana firm, the Bridge delivers neuromodulation to a set of occipital and cranial nerves (V, VII, IX, and X) via electrodes attached near the ear. The therapy helps […]
A Virtual Care Platform for Respiratory Illness: Interview with Stacie Ruth, CEO of AireHealth
AireHealth, a medtech company based in Orlando, Florida, currently offers a portable nebulizer and companion app for respiratory patients aged two and over. The small nebulizer can be charged using a micro USB charger and then placed in a bag or pocket for easy transport and use on the move. The companion app is geared […]
Sweat Sensor Gathers Large Samples for Accurate Analysis
Sweat excreted by the skin contains important biomarkers for a number of diseases, as well as being a critical parameter in athletic performance, overall body function, and even an early warning indicator of an oncoming illness. Measuring sweat output and its chemical composition, in an accurate and easily administered way, has been a challenge. Athletes […]
Dexcom Moves Toward Diabetes Prevention With the G6 Pro System: An Exclusive Look
The introduction of the continuous glucose monitor (CGM) has been a game-changer in the field of diabetes management. For patients, CGMs drastically reduce the number of annoying and painful finger sticks needed to monitor blood glucose. With readings as often as every five minutes (or on-demand), patients can see trends in their glucose levels throughout […]
Nanostimulators Activate Damaged Tissue to Heal Itself
Peripheral artery diseases and injuries to tissue reduce the amount of oxygen that reaches the affected muscles. Such ischemia is difficult to treat, as new vessels are required to carry more oxygen into damaged tissues. Stem cells derived from fat tissues have been shown to excrete substances that spur angiogenesis and calm nearby inflammation. But […]
Medtronic’s MiniMed 780G with Artificial Pancreas Capabilities Cleared in EU
Medtronic won the EU CE Mark for its MiniMed 780G closed loop insulin pump that features both Medtronic’s own SmartGuard algorithm and MD-Logic, an algorithm developed by DreaMed Diabetes, a small Israeli firm. The system, indicated to be used by patients with type 1 diabetes between ages 7 and 80, automatically delivers both basal insulin […]
Patch for Melanoma Treatment to Make Chemo Easier, Painless, More Effective
Scientists at Purdue University are reporting a skin patch that can deliver chemotherapy into melanoma tumors in an effective, convenient, and painless way. This may be an important development, as currently chemotherapy delivery options are limited and result in systemic exposure in the whole body and/or poor effectiveness. Previous attempts at chemotherapy delivery via a […]
Abbott’s Freestyle Libre 2 Advanced Wearable Glucometer FDA Cleared
After a long wait, the FDA has finally cleared Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre 2 continuous glucose monitor in the U.S. for any patients with diabetes over four years of age. The system provides low and high glucose level alarms, which let patients know in real-time if they’re falling outside of their normal range and it doesn’t […]