Scientist-led conferences at Harvard, Stanford and MIT
-
Device analyzes senior behavior, notifies caregivers of anomalies
Numera EverThere monitors senior health and daily activities in real time, and immediately notifies caregivers of of out-of-parameter readings. Senior safety products are typically reactive — the most popular example being a button pushed after a wearer has fallen. EverThere aims to be proactive, monitoring daily activities and movement to determine anomalies which require intervention. The service…
-
GPS, voice monitoring wearable for special needs kids
AngelSense is a tracking and voice monitoring wearable designed for children with special needs. Parents can: Receive an automatically generated real-time schedule Listen to a child’s activities Receive notifications of every location change Locate a lost child with a 10 second live location update Automatically download photos of the day’s locations Continuous monitoring and real…
-
Senior robots perform tasks, respond to emergencies
Robots can help seniors age in place. Following are examples of robots that perform tasks, communicate, and notify loved ones in emergencies. Toyota’s Human Support Robot program’s current robot prototype is compact and highly maneuverable, with a folding arm which can pick up objects off the floor, and bring things down from shelves, among other…
-
Drone guides visually impaired runners
University of Nevada‘s Eelke Folmer has built a drone system that guides visually impaired runners around a track, allowing them to run without a sighted guide. A downward-facing camera follows the lines on the track. A second camera focuses on a marker on the runner’s shirt. The quadcopter flies at eye level, 10 feet ahead of…
-
Toward a 3D printed heart
Carnegie Mellon‘s Adam Feinberg is developing 3D printing techniques that could in the future be used to repair the heart. This work is aimed at alternative solutions for the 4,000 Americans currently waiting to receive a heart transplant. Feinberg described his progress: “We’ve been able to take MRI images of coronary arteries and 3-D images…
-
Smart walker monitors gait, assesses falling probability
Footprints by Quanticare is a walker that continuously collects passive and contextual gait data, with the goal of predicting and preventing senior falls. Its computer vision algorithm captures spatio-temporal gait metrics of the user and sends the data to a health care provider. The company claims that the walker could measure an osteoarthritic limp to improve PT protocols, and…
-
Military shockwave sensor used for sports concussion detection
Early detection of concussion can enable more rapid treatment and better outcomes. The Linx IAS sensor detects head impact severity during sports training. It was built upon military technology that measures the impact of explosion shockwaves on the brain. The sensor is part of fabric headband. Concussive forces are transmitted to an app that rates each blow…
-
Optogenetics used to regulate heartbeat
Oxford’s Gil Bub and and Stony Brooks’ Emilia Entcheva have used optogenetics, a method used to control neurons, to regulate heartbeat. Arrhythmia patients currently use pacemakers or drugs to control heart rhythm. These approaches can stop or start waves, but cannot provide fine control over wave speed and direction. In the Bub and Entcheva study,…
-
Glass app helps autistic kids understand expressions, emotions
Dennis Wall, Catalin Voss, and Nick Haber of Stanford’s Wall Lab are developing Google Glass software to help autistic children recognize and understand facial expressions and emotions. Head motion tracking sensors, a microphone, and an eye tracking infrared camera analyze a wearer’s behavior during social interactions. Real time social cues are provided, and responses, including eye contact details,…
-
Study: Cancer drug improves Parkinson’s cognitive, motor functions
A small, early stage trial (with no control group) at Georgetown has found that a small dose of the leukemia drug nilotinib (brand name “Tasigna” by Novartis) produced “meaningful clinical improvements” in 10 out of 11 patients. The potential impact is significant, and the researchers believe that expanded studies will validate the promising results. During the trial, participant…
-
Sensors allow more natural sense of touch in prosthetics
Stanford’s Zhenan Bao is developing technology that could restore a more natural sense of touch in prosthetics. Her flexible, thin plastic sensors send signals to the brain that more closely resemble nerve messages of human skin touch sensors. The disruptive technology has not yet been tested on humans, and researchers still need to find a safe way to…
-
App detects seizure onset with heart rate, accelerometer data
Johns Hopkins professor Gregory Krauss has used ResearchKit to develop an app to detect the onset and duration of epileptic seizures with an Apple Watch. Wearers must touch the watch to capture accelerometer and heart rate sensor data, and notify a caregiver. The EpiWatch app logs seizures and responses, and tracks medication adherence and side…
Got any book recommendations?