Immagini mediche su iPhone

da Medgadget

iPhone è sempre più versatile… e se lo usassimo per il nostro iCARE?

 

 

 

MIMvista Inc., a medical imaging company out of Cleveland, Ohio, has developed a nifty application for the Apple iPhone that intuitively presents radiological images in all sorts of ways.

MIM for iPhone is a revolutionary medical imaging application that provides multi-planar reconstruction of fused data sets such as PET/CT, which are crucial in diagnosing cancer. MIM lets physicians retrieve patient images wirelessly on their iPhone or iPod touch, manipulate and adjust them using simple gestures to to isolate crucial pieces of data, and gather important data for a patient diagnosis on their rounds.

the rest of the story here

L’avvento dei chip polimorfi

 

da Le Scienze : tipico articolo che non spiega nulla o quasi: verrebbe da pensare a dei chip riconfigurabili . Sarebbe interessante recuperare la presentazione. (LgN)

La frontiera della personalità multipla dei circuiti microelettronici offrirebbe una serie di vantaggi in molte applicazioni, soprattutto nel campo della sicurezza

Gli ingegneri informatici della Rice University hanno messo a punto un metodo per progettare circuiti integrati in grado di mostrare “identità” diverse a seconda degli scopi del loro utilizzatore.

La frontiera della personalità multipla dei circuiti microelettronici, assicurano gli studiosi, potrebbe garantire una serie di vantaggi in molte applicazioni, soprattutto nel campo della sicurezza, nell’ottimizzazione dei processi e dei circuiti in dispositivi di vario genere.

La tecnologia è stata presentata alla Design Automation Conference (DAC) svoltasi ad Anaheim, in California.

“Con i circuiti integrati ‘n-varianti’ è possibile progettare lettori musicali o di altri file multimediali che sono intrinsecamente unici”, ha commentato Farinaz Koushanfar, professore di ingegneria elettronica e informatica della Rice e coordinatore del progetto. “I nuovi metodi per la gestione dei diritti digitali, per esempio, possono essere costruiti su questo tipo di architetture hardware: i file multimediali potrebbero essere concepiti in modo da funzionare con una certa variante ma non con un’altra.”

Koushanfar ritiene anche che generici fornitori di contenuti potrebbero utilizzare chip n-varianti per vendere un accesso controllato a un certo software, oppure a musica e film, dal momento che i chip possono essere programmati per passare da una variante all’altra in un particolare momento o dopo che è avvenuto l’accesso a un file per un certo numero di volte.

“I nostri chip polimorfi possono passare da una variante a un’altra sia con comandi esterni sia da comandi interni autoadattativi”, ha concluso Yousra Alkabani, che ha presentato i risultati della Rice in una sessione della conferenza DAC. (fc)

Telehealthcare Can Transform Health & Social Care

Telehealthcare has the potential to radically transform health and social care delivery and support the Government’s goal of providing integrated, person-centred care services within the community. This is according to a panel of leading healthcare experts, directors of adult and community services and the Local Government Association.

Speaking at the “Meeting Tomorrow’s Challenges” conference being held in London on 3 June, leading figures from UK charities, Local Government, Councils and Primary Care Trusts will join telecare and telehealth provider Tunstall to outline how the latest technology is underpinning the Government’s health and social care policies designed to support independence, health and well-being.

Telehealthcare brings together telecare and telehealth as a combined solution, and supports the national drive for integration and a more flexible, integrated approach to health and social care delivery within the community setting, keeping people healthy, safe and in control within their own homes, in line with the Putting People First agenda.

The Government has signalled a clear commitment to telehealthcare, announcing this month the launch of its flagship £31 million Whole System Demonstrator Programme, which will highlight the potential of using telecare and telehealth solutions to provide more effective, integrated care and support for those with complex health and social care needs.

 

read the rest of the story here

Is a Distally Controlled PillCam Coming?

from Medgadget

...ecco uno dei killer del nostro gruppo "smart Pill" ...

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 

 

Given Imaging, a company well known around here for its line of PillCam capsule endoscopes, is collaborating with a bunch of German institutions to develop technology to control the position and the speed of transit of its devices in the GI track.

According to Fraunhofer-Institut für Biomedizinische Technik, the research is quite promising:

Images of the inside of the intestine can be obtained even today: The patient swallows a camera that is no larger than a candy. It makes its way through the intestine and transmits images of the intestinal villi to an external receiver which the patient carries on a belt. This device stores the data so that the physician can later analyze them and identify any hemorrhages or cysts. However, the camera is not very suitable for examinations of the esophagus and the stomach. The reason is that camera only takes about three or four seconds to make its way through the esophagus – producing two to four images per second – and once it reaches the stomach, its roughly five-gram weight causes it to drop very quickly to the lower wall of the stomach. In other words, it is too fast to deliver usable images. For examinations of the esophagus and the stomach, therefore, patients still have to swallow a rather thick endoscope.In collaboration with engineers from the manufacturer Given Imaging, the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg and the Royal Imperial College in London, researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering in Sankt Ingbert have developed the first-ever control system for the camera pill. “In future, doctors will be able to stop the camera in the esophagus, move it up and down and turn it, and thus adjust the angle of the camera as required,” says IBMT team leader Dr. Frank Volke. “This allows them to make a precise examination of the junction between the esophagus and the stomach, for if the cardiac sphincter is not functioning properly, gastric acid comes up the esophagus and causes heartburn. In the long term, this may even cause cancer of the esophagus. Now, with the camera, we can even scan the stomach walls.” But how do the researchers manage to steer the disposable camera inside the body? “We have developed a magnetic device roughly the size of a bar of chocolate. The doctor can hold it in his hand during the examination and move it up and down the patient’s body. The camera inside follows this motion precisely,” says Volke.

The steerable camera pill is constructed in much the same way as its predecessor: It consists of a camera, a transmitter that sends the images to the receiver, a battery and several cold-light diodes which briefly flare up like a flashlight every time a picture is taken. One prototype of the camera pill has already passed its first practical test in the human body. The researchers demonstrated in a self-experiment that the camera can be kept in the esophagus for about ten minutes, even if the patient is sitting upright.

 

Full story: Magnet-controlled camera in the body…

Flashbacks: Given Imaging endoscopy capsules…

DuoFertility: Cambridge colpisce ancora

DuoFertility Decodes Messages Between Armpit, Ovaries

from Medgadget

in realtà non è la Cambridge Consultants di Vena, quel concept a forma di bracciale che dovrebbe acquisire i parametri del corpo, ma viene il sospetto che la radice di provenienza sia comune… anche l’estensore dell’articolo è scettico rispetto a questa idea…

 

 

A UK company called Cambridge Temperature Concepts is offering a refinement to traditional temperature measurements. Their new device, the DuoFertility, reads data from a patch that lives in a woman’s armpit, to explain ovulation patterns.

Currently the device is in a trial period, although the employees of Cambridge Temperature Concepts say it’s been working great on them (though that disclosure raises many more questions than it answers).

And, just as with any prototype, there are gaffes to make even the novice marketer blush, such as this one comparing their device to traditional thermometers:

There is no need to wake up at 6am each morning to take your temperature. You are free to spend the first 5 minutes of your day as you wish!

Five minutes of free time per day? What a great machine!

And, if you’re curious, those strange button symbols along the edges are supposed to help classify the temperature data. The buttons on the left, for instance, signify (from top to bottom) “period starting”, “made love”, “feeling ill” and “sleep disruption” … if you press the buttons in the right sequence you can not only predict fertility, but pretty much describe all your college relationships.

Via Engadget (which took a break from iPhone coverage to bring you this, but only because it has an iPod-style clickwheel)

A Doctor in Your Pocket

from TFOT The Future Of Things

Monday, May 12, 2008 – Roey Tzezana

Scientists taking part in the European project BIOTEX have developed prototype biosensors, which can be integrated into special fabrics. The sensors are capable of measuring sodium, chloride, and potassium in miniscule volumes of sweat samples on the skin. An added immunosensor can also detect the presence of specific proteins in sweat. This technology will enable a constant monitoring of our vital signs and will provide a non-stop medical assessment of our health.

It is 12 AM, and you are having the headache of your life. You can not concentrate on your screen, and you are too tired to care. All of a sudden, your phone rings. It’s your doctor, and he is worried. “Sir,” he says, “Your tie just called me about your perspiration. You’re almost dehydrated. You really should drink a few cups of water!” New fabrics are making their way to the market. They may not look like much at first – just your ordinary, run of the mill, cloths. However, when one looks deep into the fabric, a very different picture is revealed. All throughout the fibers, micro-chips and micro-sensors are hidden. Some of the sensors are so small that they cannot be seen with the naked eye. Their affect on our health and lifestyle, however, is going to be nothing short of revolutionary. At the moment, there are sensors that can measure the wearer’s body temperature or trace his or her heart activity. But, as the European Union’s SFIT group (Smart Fabrics, Interactive Textile) is bent on proving, sensors of this kind mark the beginning of a new era. If their predictions come true, quite soon the new fabrics will also be able to analyze the sweat our body exudes, and provide a non-stop assessment of our health

read the full story here

get more info about the European Project here

Lastre e ricette: la sanità sul telefonino

dal Corriere on Line

Negli Usa ogni 30 programmi di ricerca tecnologica in medicina 17 riguardano i telefonini

 

DAL NOSTRO INVIATO
NEW YORK — Si applica sulla pelle come qualunque altro cerotto, ma contiene un sensore capace di misurare la glicemia, la temperatura, le reazioni allergiche e altri dati rilevanti, ad esempio, per la diagnosi di malattie cardiocircolatorie. Questo speciale «band aid» trasmette i dati al cellulare che, a sua volta, li invia al medico o all’infermiera che segue il paziente.

altre informazioni qui sul Corriere on line  e questo è il sito della Gentag, una società americana di telemedicina

Mini-Origami: ISI Folds Up Tiny Packages for Drug Delivery

from The University of Southern California

May 1, 2008	Last modified: May 2, 2008
Researchers at the USC Information Sciences Institute have demonstrated a way to manufacture miniscule containers that might be used to deliver precise micro- or even nano- quantities of drugs.   The Voxel team – consisting of Will, professor of chemistry Bruce Koel (who has since gone to Lehigh University), former post-doctoral researcher Alejandro Bugacov and former grad student (now graduate) Rob Gagler folded a number of different shapes, including four- and five-sided pyramids, pentagonal ‘lotus’ shapes, and also simple square plates that folded over each other to make flat mini- envelopes. Will (right) has been pursuing the idea of creating voxels for many years, “way back to my days in HP labs, when I was working in Medical and Chemical applications.” The USC team designed the chips using MEMSPRO CAD software; the actual chip fabrication was done in France. “The experimental work was done on campus,” said Will, “since ISI doesn’t have a wet lab.” The National Science Foundation supported the research, under an exploratory research grant. The paper is “Voxels: volume-enclosing microstructures,” J. Micromech. Microeng. 18 (2008) 055025. Below: additional images and schematics:

Telemedicine and eHealth Conference 2008

Innovation in eHealth

2007.10.29 by Hilde Pettersen

The Norwegian Centre for telemedicine is hosting the 2008 Telemedicine and eHealth Conference from 9 to 11 June in Tromsø, the city of the world’s northernmost university.

On the theme “Innovation in eHealth”, the conference will be a forum for innovation brainstorming, research and exchange of ideas combined with an experience of the wild and beautiful nature north of the Arctic Circle. Research-based innovation New this year is that this conference offers recognition to researchers who participate in dissemination of research. This means that research articles approved by a scientific committee will be published in the Journal of Telemedicine and Telecare after the conference. Health visions At this conference, participants will gain an insight into the world of the possible. With the help of information technology, health services can be delivered in new ways. Telemedicine in the year of 2008 is much more than doctors’ consultations with videoconferencing and remotely assisted surgery. The Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine invites research communities, business and others to submit their vision of the world of possibilities in health. more information here

VitalJacket: Heart Monitoring Shirt

from Medgadget

In an attempt to make heart monitoring less visible and bulky for individuals requiring continuous monitoring of their heart, BioDevices, SA, has a unique solution. The company has developed a T-shirt which continuously monitors heart rate and ECG waves. This is an ideal solution for elderly patients and has a lot of potential for fitness applications as well.

The Vital Jacket® is a wearable vital signs monitoring system that joins textiles with microelectronics. It was designed and developed to be a usable pragmatic approach for different clinical and normal life scenarios, in hospitals, home or on the move, that need continuous or frequent high quality vital signs monitoring from the patient or healthy subject. The concept was designed and specified based on the long tradition on biomedical instrumentation and telemedicine of the IEETA institute of the University of Aveiro, Portugal (www.ieeta.pt/sias).The Vital Jacket® HWM mobile device is an intelligent wearable garnment that is able to continuous monitor electrocardiogram (ECG) wave and Heart Rate for different fitness, high performance sports, security and medical applications.

There are currently two versions, HWM100 that stores data on a SD memory card for posterior analysis in a PC and, HWM200 that allows on-line visualization using a smartphone/PDA.

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