The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a slew of new challenges for clinical facilities, including how to deliver as much care as possible at a distance. The Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU) Medical Hospital is working with Kyocera to be able to deliver rehab therapy to patients while closely monitoring (Read more...)
Tag: Rehab
The Rig Lets Disabled People go Offroading
People with lower limb paralysis generally don’t get to enjoy the great outdoors nearly as easily as other nature lovers. Wheelchairs aren’t designed to traverse rugged terrain and to go on long treks, but a couple in Utah wanted to design something they themselves can use to see the world and their ideas have led […]
Go-2 Spinal Stimulator Helps Return Leg Function: Interview with Jan Öhrström, Chairman of the Board, GTX Medical
GTX Medical, a medtech company with offices in The Netherlands and Switzerland, has announced that it received Breakthrough Device Designation for the Go-2 system, an implant that provides targeted epidural spinal stimulation therapy for patients with spinal cord injuries. The device aims to allow such patients to regain leg motor function and neur (Read more...)
AI Guides Prostheses to Match Walking Pattern to Terrain
Lower limb prostheses that are self-powered and help users walk fairly naturally don’t work well on varying surfaces. Walking on paved concrete is very different from traversing a grassy field, but without knowing the terrain below it is impossible for a prosthetic to adjust accordingly. Now, researchers at North Carolina State University hav (Read more...)
WalkWise Walker Attachment Helps Seniors Stay Safe and Mobile
Falls have serious consequences for seniors, especially those who live alone. Medical alert devices can notify emergency services, but they are not always worn. In addition, they do not address fall prevention by encouraging active lifestyles and physical strengthening. WalkWise hopes to fill these gaps. The Fargo, ND-based company offers a smart d (Read more...)
Soft Actuator and Sensor for Underactive Bladder Treatment
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have developed a soft sensor and actuator to monitor bladder volume and help empty it on-demand. The device is intended to be implanted on the bladder surface during a surgical procedure to treat patients who cannot completely empty their bladders voluntarily. Patients can suffer from an underacti (Read more...)
Brain-Computer Interface Lets Man with Complete Spinal Cord Injury Feel and Move His Hand
Spinal cord injuries can leave people paralyzed and without a sense of touch in much of the body. While there’s been a tremendous amount of work in the past decade to overcome paralysis by using brain-computer interfaces to bypass damaged spinal cords, providing a sense of touch is a necessity for truly proper treatment. As […]
Lungpacer Diaphragm Pacer Gets FDA Emergency Use Authorization for COVID-19
Lungpacer Medical, based in Vancouver, Canada, announced that its Diaphragm Pacing Therapy (DPT) System received FDA Emergency Use Authorization for use in weaning COVID-19 patients off of ventilators. Patients on prolonged mechanical ventilation may experience diaphragm disuse atrophy and ventilator-induced diaphragmatic dysfunction (VIDD), which (Read more...)
Optimizer System for Cardiac Contractility Modulation: Interview with Dr. Ishu Rao, Medical Director of Impulse Dynamics
Impulse Dynamics, based in Mt. Laurel, New Jersey, has developed the Optimizer system, a device designed to improve myocardial contractility in patients with heart failure. The system is intended to improve the quality of life of heart failure patients by reducing the severity of their symptoms. At present, many heart failure patients have few opti (Read more...)
Clear Face Masks for The Deaf and Hard of Hearing
There are hundreds of groups around the world making face masks as fast as they can to help slow the spread of COVID-19. While face masks can help to block particulates from entering the nose and mouth, they also make it impossible to see the mouth moving when the wearer is talking. This is actually […]
Prosthetic Tech Lets Users Control Individual Fingers on First Try
Existing prosthetic hands have to rely on weak electrical nerve signals in order to know when to activate their motors. That’s because electrodes are typically placed on the skin over the area where the nerves end at the stump and the skin doesn’t transmit electricity that well. Implantable electrodes that make contact with the nerves [ (Read more...)
Phagenyx Helps Treat Difficulty Swallowing After Stroke
Dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing, can dramatically decrease a person’s quality of life and lead to poor nutritional intake. Neurological oropharyngeal dysphagia is due to damage to the nerves that control the muscles related to swallowing, often caused by strokes or other neurological conditions. The Phagenyx System is a neurostimulation d (Read more...)
Artificial Self-Assembled Blood Vessels
A team of researchers headed by groups at University of Nottingham and Queen Mary University London have come up with a smart material that forms into new blood vessels. Made out of graphene oxide and a protein, the material is 3D printed and naturally forms into tubular shapes that are very similar to blood vessels. […]
Notion Brain Computing Platform: Interview with AJ Keller, CEO of Neurosity
Neurosity, a neurotech company based in New York, has developed the Notion brain computing platform. The system has a huge range of potential medical applications, including monitoring a patient’s mental health, to diagnosing concussions, to allowing paralyzed patients to control electric wheelchairs. The headset can do this because it incorp (Read more...)
Wearable Magnetic Stimulator for Stroke Recovery
Stroke can result in a variety of debilitating conditions caused by damaged neural connections within the brain. Researchers at the Eddy Scurlock Stroke Center at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas have now successfully tested a wearable, multifocal, transcranial, rotating, permanent magnet stimulator (TRPMS) to boost neural activity near injured (Read more...)
Tactile Enhancement to Compensate for Loss of Sensation
A variety of medical conditions, including diabetic neuropathy, infections, and injuries, can lead to a reduced ability to feel touch with one’s skin. This can be frustrating and uncomfortable, but it can also result in an inability to walk in comfort, notice wounds and injuries, and deal with everyday tasks. Now researchers in China are [&he (Read more...)
VOCSN 5-in-1 Portable Ventilator: Interview with Chris Kiple, CEO of Ventec
Ventilators are used by patients who lose lung function due to complications from a variety of diseases such as spinal cord injuries, COPD, stroke, pneumonia, and ALS. In addition to dealing with a debilitating situation, patients tend to be hooked to several machines that perform mechanical ventilation, oxygen delivery, cough assist, suction, and (Read more...)
Electronic Bandage Delivers Drugs, Leaves No Scar
Chronic wounds, such as those associated with diabetes, can be incredibly difficult to manage. Even the process of accessing and medicating the wound can be detrimental to healing. Researchers from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Harvard Medical School, and University of Connecticut are now reporting on having developed an electronic bandage that c (Read more...)
Researchers Develop High Sensitivity Electronic Skin Material
The development of electronic skin is certainly an important part of future prosthetic devices. To make a high quality artificial skin, one would have to make a very flexible system seeded with many sensors, all wired somehow to a central core where the data can be interpreted. This requires pretty impressive material design skill, but […]
Exclusive: Protolabs Help Paralympic Athlete “Monster” Mike Schultz Compete in Winter X Games Aspen 2020
Known in the racing community as “Monster” Mike Schultz, the 36-year-old from St. Cloud, MN has transformed the world of adaptive action sports in multiple ways. In 2008, Schultz suffered a knee injury during a snowmobile competition that resulted in amputation of his left leg above the knee. Limited by a prosthesis that didn’t pe (Read more...)