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Pain Sensors Wearables

Pain relieving wearable, app

Cur is a wearable pain relief system, similar to Quell, (see ApplySci, 1/13/15) for people who respond to TENS.  It uses uses electrical stimulation to stop pain at its source.  The bandaid-like device sticks directly to skin, and all the modulation of electrical signals is automatically controlled by built in sensors.  Users can also adjust the amount of stimulation with a smartphone app.

The company claims that “within five seconds it measures muscle vibrations, and uses those vibrations to adjust the amplitude—the strength of the treatment.”

The wearable must  receive FDA approval for a low-risk wellness device.  If effective, non-drug pain relievers, like Pur and Quell, could help sufferers avoid the addiction and debilitating side effects associated with narcotic pain medicine.

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Categories
IoT Seniors Sensors Wearables

Stamp sized wearable detects falls

As part of its IoT Ubiquitousware platform, Fujitsu has developed a stamp sized sensor tag that detects falls, position, posture, and temperature changes.

The tags contain accelerometers, barometers, gyroscopes and microphones. They can also include heart rate sensors and GPS modules. Data is transmitted via Bluetooth Low Energy. Algorithms analyze the data and automatically send alerts to caregivers.

The sensors can be worn as wristbands, on lapels or pockets, or be attached to shopping carts and walkers.  Obvious potential users include seniors and  hospital patients.

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Asthma Data Sensors

Inhaler sensors track asthma severity across cities

Propeller Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through their Air Louisville program, are using sensors on asthma inhalers to track when, where and how often inhalers are used. This helps patients manage symptoms, and city officials warn of increased chances of asthma severity in certain areas.

Sensors attach to inhaled medication, and a smartphone app and physician-facing website analyze the data. Patients are given the inhalers for free.  The use of “rescue medication” (short-acting bronchodilators) and daily maintenance medication are monitored.

Air sampling monitors are overlayed onto the EPA monitor backbone to  determine connections between air quality, environmental factors, and asthma severity.

Propeller Health plans to expand its asthma monitoring program to five U.S. cities.

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Categories
Brain Eyes

Wireless brain chip restores vision, bypasses eye

Monash University’s Bionic Eye will be trialed in humans next year. The study is being led by Professor Jeffrey V. Rosenfeld.

Patients who have lost their sight will have tiny “ceramic tiles” implanted into their brain’s visual cortex. The device bypasses the normal visual pathway, unlike the other bionic eyes in development, which rely on an implant in the retina.

A glasses mounted digital camera  captures images before transferring them to a small vision processing device. Once processed, the image is transferred to an antenna attached to the back of a glasses frame. It is then wirelessly transmitted to the brain, where it is received by the small ceramic tiles implanted during surgery. The tiny tiles, each containing 43 microelectrodes​, measure 9mm by 9mm.

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Categories
Diabetes

Heat sensitive sock detects diabetic circulation issues

Kent State University researchers have developed a fabric that can be turned into a sensor sock for diabetics.

The liquid crystal in the  prototype sock changes color depending on body temperature.  Inflammation, swelling and infection cause an increase in temperature, and poor circulation causes a decrease in temperature.  This is a simple way to detect changes early and avoid significant diabetic complications.

Patients put the socks on in the morning. If they notice a color change, they are prompted to call their doctor.  The most common change would be to blue or green, indicating heat.

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Seniors Sensors

Sensor technology helps seniors age in place

Evermind, Lively (see ApplySci April, 2013 and November, 2014), and BeClose are sensor systems allowing remote  caregiver monitoring — part of a growing genre of technologies helping seniors age in place.

Evermind detects when appliances are switched on and off, and sends messages to caregivers through the day.  It also sends alerts when changes in activity could be cause for concern. BeClose and Lively’s motion sensors also monitor daily activity, and can send alerts about falls, missed medication, and other custom parameters.  Lively can be integrated with an emergency response system.

As the population ages, and society recognizes the need for a dignified existence for the elderly, these technologies will continue to proliferate.

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Categories
Brain Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality in neurosurgery planning

UCLA Neurosurgery, led by Neil Martin,  is using VR in surgery planning, integrating the Oculus Rift with Surgical Theater’s 3D “SNAP” surgery navigation device.  (See ApplySci’s April, 2014 description of Surgical Theater’s technology.) The hope is to be able improve precision and outcomes, and decrease surgical time.

The VR scene is based on patient CT and MRI scans, allowing the surgeon to enter the virtual brain, examine the tumor or aneurysm, and plan surgical strategy and operative steps.  By preparing with this visual representation of the brain, surgeons might be better able to protect and preserve areas that control motor and language function during procedures.

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Categories
Conference MRI

Ultra-low-field, portable MRI

Los Alamos National Laboratory‘s Michelle Espy is developing an ultra-low-field, lightweight MRI system for use on the battlefield and in poor countries.  The device will be simple to transport, set up, and use in non-traditional settings.

Conventional MRI machines use large magnetic fields that align protons in water molecules. Magnetic resonance signals are detected and turned into images. Highly detailed images are created, but the process is complicated and expensive. Espy uses Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices (SQUID) to create quality images with ultra-low-magnetic fields.

The  first generation (battlefield) “b”MRI was built in a large metal housing to shield it from interference.  The team is now surrounding the system with lightweight wire coils in the open environment to compensate the Earth’s magnetic field.  A field compensation system will soon eradicate invading magnetic field signals.

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3-D Printing Respiratory

3D printed airway splints restore breathing

At the University of Michigan, three children under 2 with tracheobronchomalacia had 3D printed devices implanted to open their airways and restore their breathing.

Professors Glenn Green and Scott Hollister were able to create and implant customized tracheal splints for each patient. The device was created directly from CT scans of their tracheas, integrating an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint.

The splint was sewn around the patient’s airways to expand the trachea and bronchus and give it a skeleton to aid proper growth. It is designed to be reabsorbed by the body over time. The growth of the airways were followed with CT and MRI scans, and it was shown to allow airway growth for all three patients.

The findings suggest that early treatment of tracheobronchomalacia may prevent complications of conventional treatment such as a tracheostomy, prolonged hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, cardiac and respiratory arrest, food malabsorption and discomfort. None of the devices implanted in this study have caused complications.

The bioresorable splints enabled the patients to come off of ventilators and ended their need for paralytics, narcotics and sedation.  Researchers noted improvements in multiple organ systems.  The patients were also relieved of immunodeficiency-causing proteins that prevented them from absorbing food so that they no longer needed intravenous therapy.

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Categories
AI Robotics Sensors

Robot sensor reads facial expressions to determine emotions

Sungkyunkwan University‘s Nae-Eung Lee has created a stretchable, transparent sensor that helps robots read facial expressions.  It senses smiling, frowning, brow-furrowing and eye-rolling.  The robot then detects movements, including slight changes in gaze, to determine whether people are laughing or crying, and where they are looking.

The ultra-sensitive, wearable sensor layers a carbon nanotube film on two types of electrically-conductive elastomers.

Lee believes that in addition to robotics, the sensors could be used to monitor heartbeats, breathing, or dysphagia. 

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Categories
Infectious Disease mHealth Sensors

Cheap, flexible biosensor detects HIV, E-coli, Staph aureas

Florida Atlantic, Stanford, and Harvard  researchers have developed a thin, lightweight, flexible “paper microchip” biosensing platform to detect and determine treatment for HIV, E-coli, Staphylococcus aureas and other bacteria. They have also created an app that could remotely detect bacteria and disease in the blood using mobile phone images.

Current paper and flexible material-based platforms cost more and take longer.  The researchers claim that the new platforms are uniquely able to isolate and detect multiple biotargets selectively, sensitively, and repeatedly from diverse biological mediums using antibodies.

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Respiratory Seniors Sleep

Built-in, contactless sensors monitor breathing

Caucasian woman sleeping in bed

Novelda’s building-integrated “XeThru” sensor modules detect human presence and monitor respiration.  Breath rate and depth are measured and tracked in real-time.   The use of radio waves, rather than infrared, ultrasound or light, allows the modules to ‘see through’ a variety of objects, including  building materials and blankets.

The sensors are intended for hidden, tamper proof, smart home automation.  They are tools for allowing seniors to age in place, as breathing abnormalities are observed with out a manual alarm trigger.  Sleep abnormalities can also be detected. The system can, of course, also be used for security,  and to control climate and lighting.

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