CES 2020, the world’s premier gadget show, just kicked off in Las Vegas. A great number of products will be presented that deal with health and medicine, and we have a reporter on site who will be bringing exclusives from the show floor. One company presenting this year is SmartTools, based outside of Cleveland, Ohio, […]
Tag: Sports Medicine
Body Sensors Made of Magical Self-Healing Threads
A team of scientists in South Korea has developed a remarkable new body sensor technology that consists of flexible threads that can heal on their own. The fabric-like threads, which are made of carbon fiber electrodes coated with a citric acid-based polymer, can measure electrolyte concentrations within sweat. The team used their material, which after […]
Nexkin Multi-Parameter Body Monitoring Shirt Unveiled
Chronolife, a firm headquartered in Paris, France, is releasing a T-shirt that can monitor six vitals and health parameters, including a single-lead ECG, abdominal and thoracic breathing, body temperature, activity levels, and pulmonary impedance, a measure of how pulmonary vessels resist pulsatile blood flow. The Nexkin device looks like a typical short-sleeved T-shirt. A single […]
SOZO System FDA Cleared for Protein Calorie Malnutrition Assessment
ImpediMed, a company based in Carlsbad, California, won clearance from the FDA for its SOZO device to assess protein calorie malnutrition. The condition can be common in cancer patients, so recognizing it before obvious symptoms, such as muscle wasting, appear is very important. Moreover, quite a few patients who don’t have cancer are malnourished for […]
Injectable Electrodes for Neuromodulation
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed an injectable flexible electrode that can aid in neuromodulation therapy, potentially replacing more rigid electrodes that do not mesh well with soft tissues. The injectable material consists of a silicone gel and small metal particles, and it forms a flexible bolus when injected around a target nerve. […]
Epidermal Display Screens for On-Body Flexible Medical Devices
Researchers from Nanjing University in China have developed a way to place displays on human skin that are flexible, safe, and don’t require a lot of power to run. The technology will certainly have implications for the field of wearable devices by allowing already existing flexible medical devices to display relevant biomedical information. Previously, flexible […]
First Portable Carb Metabolism Monitor Unveiled
Kyocera of Japan has just unveiled the first carbohydrate metabolism measurement device. The system is portable and users can assess their carbohydrate metabolism just about anywhere. The soon to be released product is a radial arterial pulse wave gyro sensor that analyzes pulse-wave patterns at the wrist. Kyocera hopes that this new device will help […]
HUMM Releases First Affordable Patch for Improving Working Memory: Exclusive Interview
We previously interviewed Humm, a San Francisco-based neuroscience company, when they had first released their Edge headset – an electrical stimulation device that helped users by boosting their working memory. Humm is focused on helping people continue to learn and grow throughout their lives. The idea behind their innovations is that through stimulation of the […]
Chip to Evaluate Health of Immune System from Blood Sample
Knowing how well a patient’s immune system is functioning may be very useful in diagnosing a disease and guiding the course of therapy. Researchers from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are making this a reality, having developed a hybrid chip that assesses the health of white blood cells in a whole blood sample. The microfluidic […]
Printing Custom Flexible Electronics Directly Onto Skin, Bandages, Medical Devices
Flexible electronics have the potential to help monitor, and even modulate, a number of physiological parameters. While stick-on heart monitors can be manufactured as one-size-fits-all, in applications such as electronic bandages that can monitor and treat a wound, it’s best to be able to create custom devices that suit each patient’s needs. Currently, making flexible […]
Hexoskin Shirt Proving Itself for Lung Function Measurement
A few years ago Hexoskin, a Canadian startup, announced the development of a sensor-packed t-shirt that can measure a number of physiological parameters in real-time. It’s novel because it doesn’t require the wearer to put on individual sensors and attach them to the skin, allowing common daily at-home and athletic activities to be performed. We […]
Flexible Vitals Sensors Made from Graphene Sensitized with Quantum Dots
At the ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Catalonia, Spain, researchers have come up with a way to use graphene to make flexible photodetectors to measure heart rate, blood oxygen concentration, and breathing rate. Additionally, the technology can also be used to measure UV levels coming from the Sun and to communicate the […]
Smart Phyjamas for Monitoring Physiological Signals at Night
Researchers from University of Massachusetts at Amherst have developed a new smart pajama, dubbed Phyjama, that can track physiological signals during sleep. Their work demonstrates that the technology can reliably measure heart rate, breathing rate, and sleep position during the course of the night. One day, advances like this can be incorporated into regular sleepwear, […]
GymCam Automatically Classifies, Counts Exercise Reps
Smartwatches and dedicated wrist-based activity trackers have become popular over the past few years. They’re decent at counting steps during walking and running, but they’re not very good at tracking most athletic activities. At Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a camera-based system that simply watches people at the gym doing exercises and automatically classifies […]
FDA Clears First Cuff-Free Blood Pressure Monitors
The FDA has granted Biobeat, an Israeli firm, clearance for the company’s wrist watch and patch that measure blood oxygenation, heart rate, and blood pressure. Not relying on a traditional cuff allows for long-term monitoring of blood pressure, particularly in patients who have difficulty keeping track of their health parameters on their own. Moreover, it […]
Flexible Transistors for Body-Worn and Implantable Medical Devices
Recently, engineers in a variety of institutions have been making great progress in the field of flexible electronics. A variety of devices have been made, including completely flexible body-worn sensors. While a great deal of the components have indeed been created to be flexible, integrated circuits and the transistors that they’re made of have had […]
Stick-On Wearable Sweat Sensors to Monitor Exercise, Disease
The sweat excreted by our skin contains a number of metabolites and biomarkers that may be useful in managing disease, tracking athletic performance, and helping to identify health problems. Moreover, the amount of sweat that we produce can in itself be an important measure, but current sweat analysis techniques are very limited. Now, researchers at […]
Fully Flexible and Wireless Body Monitoring Sensors
Flexible body-worn sensors that conform to the skin have great potential for monitoring patient health, conducting long-term studies, and giving consumers a way to track their exercise and overall health. Although there have been flexible sticker-like body monitors developed in the past, they have all involved rigid electronic chips and batteries. So, although they’re flexible […]
Exosuit Improves Metabolic Rate of Walking, Running
There have been a variety of exoskeletons and exosuits developed over the past decade or so that help with rehabilitation and assist workers in doing heavy labor. Improving walking and running abilities using a single system, though, has been a challenge because of differences in gait between walking and running. Now, researchers from Harvard and […]
Flexible Pump Breakthrough for Soft Robotics to Advance Artificial Muscles, Assistive Technology
Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed a flexible and stretchable pump for soft robotics. The existence of the device, described in the latest journal Nature, means that soft robots may no longer need to be tethered to rigid and bulky pumps, allowing for greater versatility in soft medical devices, such […]