Digital Health, Wearable technology and Devices

A very concise description of automated blood pressure measurement. When new medical doctors are taught to take blood pressure, they are taught to listen to the sounds through their stethoscope while inflating and then slowly deflating the arm cuff. This instrument is called the sphygmomanometer. There are distinct sounds that one hears as the artery…

There are many companies that develop kits for diagnostics that are primarily made for diagnostic laboratories. There are a smaller range of kits that are available for direct to consumer use. The kits that are available have to be certified and have to be simple enough to use. For example, a pregnancy test is a…

There are several methods to detect analytes in the microscale. These vary from characterizing some specific property of the analyte being measured. One interesting method that has been used by Dr Richard Wilson of University of Houston is to create retroreflectors that are bound to specific antibodies or ligands. Retroreflectors normally reflect all the light…

Dean Kamen is an inventor who has more than 440 patents, has started many successful companies and is an accomplished serial entrepreneur. He probably has started more companies and developed more devices than many other people. His continuing accomplishment is FIRST robotics, that aims to develop robots by school children and help in their development….

It is well known in literature that the surface topography has a profound effect on immune reaction – for example some rough surfaces of implants can create some very bad adverse reactions. Similarly, there is good published literature from 1978 (Folkman and Mosconna) that showed that different concentrations of poly(2-hydroxethyl methacrylate) influenced the cell shape…

The quantified self movement tries to quantify the self through measurement of every bodily function. This has lead to development of a lot of devices. The one device that is made by a company called Asthamapolis.  This company has put a GPS on an inhaler to figure out where people have the most asthma. Quantified…

When a company buys and uses software that is off the shelf software, like the Windows operating system there is still some responsibility to the developer to check that the software works as it is supposed to work. With other pieces of software, say the National Instruments – LabView that is incorporated into more medical…

Almost everything can be quantitated. It is interesting to see how devices are created to measure things accurately. Consider measuring tablet hardness. This is a quantifiable parameter. It is important from the dosage and breakage point of view but also important to measure how the tablet making machines and the various binders are working efficiently….

There are many potential cell phone based applications but the firsn to get approved for Diabetes is iBGstar from Sanofi Aventis. This is a good compromise is using the dipstick based technology and then combining it with iPhone to read out the results. All this ends up replacing is the little electronic device that used…

There are many sensors that go into devices, such as temperature sensors, pressure sensors or even hemoglobin oxygenation sensors. Many of the sensors are made by engineers to be very precise and also very linear in their response. However, they are expensive and most hobbyist look for alternatives to the sensors. Sometimes, it is possible…